It appears that the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and the local authorities have not been talking to each other. Neither has there been much coordination between the CIDB and the police. And the victims of this, as always in Malaysian maladies, are ordinary people.
Haven't we heard this before? Welcome to deja vu, Malaysia. Rogue contractors — registered and blacklisted — love this void where manipulation is made that much easier.
Crooked contractors with just cash on their mind "rent" their CIDB licences, just like Ali Baba traders lease their permits for a fee.
One knavish contractor had managed to dupe almost a million ringgit from many who were gullible enough to pay the entire cost of renovation upfront.
Are they not afraid of being blacklisted themselves? Why should they be when they can easily rent a CIDB licence? Even if they are caught and fined, it would just be a slap on the wrist. In the meantime, the list of duped homeowners left moaning about shattered dreams grows by the day.
What can be done to arrest this Malaysian malady? Five parties — the CIDB, local councils, the police, the government and homeowners — each have a role to play in stemming renovation scams.
Start with the CIDB, the construction industry regulator. While not all the blame for the skyrocketing scams can be placed on the shoulders of the government agency, it must share a good portion of it.
The reasons are a few. One, it has on its register a discomfiting number of contractors renting out its licences to blacklisted ones. It must purge both.
Two, contractors who have had their licences revoked a few times are not permanently barred. By its own admission to this newspaper, the CIDB had suspended or blacklisted almost 2,000 contractors since 2020.
If the CIDB doesn't get more stringent, shady contractors will soon turn it into a rogues' gallery.
Secondly, local councils can foil home renovation scams, if they want to, that is, by adopting a simple step: making approval of building plans conditional upon the contractors having a CIDB licence.
This is not so now. It must be soon. But first, they must talk to each other. So must the CIDB and the police, the third player in the renovation scam termination game.
But the police are getting technical about the roguery being not a crime. Even so, they can help duped homeowners by forwarding their reports to the CIDB.
Everyone agrees that there is a void in the law, which is being exploited to the hilt by predatory contractors. This can only be solved by the government, the fourth terminator of the construction industry scam.
Abandoning construction of homes must be made a crime so that it can be policed. Alternatively, the government can amend the Consumer Protection Act 1999 to enable the Tribunal for Consumer Claims to hear such cases.
As currently worded, it is a boon for predatory contractors. The act's intent is to protect consumers, but its words are shielding crooked contractors. That intent must be expressed in words.
Finally, homeowners must play their part, too, in stopping the scam. They must discuss their renovation or construction plans with the CIDB. If either runs into problems, they must lodge a complaint with the board. Staying silent only helps the cause of charlatans and cheats.