Architectural professionals were urged to play a more rigorous and proactive role in the process of the new, and somewhat controversial, Built Environment Professionals Bill, which proposed the establishment of a ‘super-council’, namely the South African Council for Built Environment (SACBE).

Addressing delegates at the biennial South African Institute of Architects convention on Wednesday, South African Council for the Architectural Profession (Sacap) registrar Dorothy Brislin noted that the Engineering Council of South Africa (Ecsa) was providing a leading example among built environment professionals, whereby the voluntary associations and the councils worked together, and were present and active in the process of the Built Environment Professionals Bill.

“There are always people [from Ecsa] at every step of the process and they network the information and report on the information on a daily basis. We would love to see architectural professionals also taking an example from the engineering council,” added Brislin.

She emphasised, that the roles of councils such as Sacap were likely to change with the introduction of the Built Environment Professionals Bill.

The Department of Public Works (DPW) last week briefed a select committee of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on the Bill, which has already been approved by the National Assembly's Portfolio Committee on Public Works, which held public hearings into the proposed law earlier this year.

The department said the Bill was designed to accelerate transformation of professions such as engineering, architecture, and quantity surveying.

The ‘super-council’ would incorporate all the existing professional councils, and transform them into subsidiary boards.

Brislin stated that following the DPW brief to the NCOP, “indications from that process are, that there are at least two Ministries, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Finance, which have quite serious reservation about the Bill - in terms of it not being in unison with the policies of those particular ministries”.

She added that this was “one of the reasons that the NCOP has indicated that they are likely to call for public hearings, which would be a very important step”.

“We would like to make the project of engaging around what would be the best scenario for new legislation or a new legislative framework for sustainable built environment - that process would hopefully be far more rigorous than it has been to date,” Brislin said.

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