Bahamian Contractors Association (BCA) President Leonard Sands told Guardian Business yesterday that he is highly disappointed a contractors board was not brought into force before this upcoming general election.
Sands said: “I’m incredibly disappointed. I just came off the phone with a very large law firm, which is challenged trying to explain to clients what it takes to get a contractor license. Their challenge is they’re trying to understand the act of Parliament established in 2016 for a contractor license, but there’s no agency for them to make an application for the actual license.”
The Construction Contractor’s Act, passed in 2016, mandates the establishment of a contractors board, that would assess and examine the qualifications of persons seeking a contractor license, and exercise disciplinary control over contractors inclusive of breaches of health and safety regulations and unethical construction practices.
Sands also said: “International companies will go straight to the law first to make sure they’re doing things legally inside of a foreign country. They’re not going to break a law. So, when they seek to find out about getting a contractor license here, and they find out that they can’t get a contractor license, but the law passed in 2016 says that they can, it is hard to explain to them it is because the contractors board has not been appointed yet.
“So, the law firm asked me, how come the board has not been appointed? And I don’t have the answer to that. I just know it hasn’t been appointed.
He continued: “The prime minister and I spoke in August 2025 and he promised us a contractors board by the end of September 2025. There were multiple calls, emails and after that letters sent, but no response. If I speed, it breaches the Road Traffic Act, and I can get a ticket, but I can operate a construction company without a license, and nothing will happen to me.”
A contractors board is supposed to supervise the specialized training for heavy equipment workers and enforce safety standards across the industry. The construction industry in The Bahamas has seen an increase in industrial accidents throughout early 2026. In January, an excavator operator in his 50s was killed when a hillside collapsed at a site near the Tonique Williams-Darling Highway, near the former Mario’s Bowling Alley. On February 12, a 49-year-old man was killed at the Airport Industrial Park, after a forklift he was working under reportedly malfunctioned and collapsed onto him. Also in February, a 34-year-old man was seriously injured and trapped after a crane collapsed on Fire Trail Road West, and a 57-year-old worker was injured after falling approximately 20 feet in the Seabreeze area, when a bucket truck’s lift mechanism failed during streetlight repairs.
