REGULARS: PERSONALITY PROFILE
Uwe Putlitz: guiding
building practitioners
Be calm yet firm about having signed agreements and sticking to them,
says CEO of Joint Building Contracts Committee (JBCC), Uwe Putlitz.
By Ntsako Khosa
T
workflow – largely due to political
uncertainty, both locally and
internationally.
With many roofing projects handled by
sub-contractors, Putlitz says that they face
the challenge of finding a regular flow of
work, “and then to get paid in full, and on
time. Without the skill of subcontractors,
the industry will be hard pressed to perform
– they deserve to be treated as an integral
member of the construction team. Sadly,
that often does not happen,” he states.
Timeous payment in the industry
remains problematic as many owners or
employers do not honour regular payment
commitments in full by the due date
causing a ripple effect where
subcontractors and suppliers are not paid
leading to insolvency and unemployment.
The Construction Industry Development
Board (cidb) seeks to manage this problem
by introducing best practice guidelines to
eliminate ‘pay when paid’ practices in the
industry. JBCC agreements embody such
criteria already – provided one party does
not unilaterally cross out these provisions
in the agreements and the other party
reluctantly must accept the amendments or
face a scenario of no work at all. This aspect
also forms part of the favourite part of his
job, being able to guide building
practitioners and seeing the successful
implementation of appropriate procedures.
“I also enjoy teaching at university level,”
he adds.
As a qualified and practising architect,
he has always had an interest in the
systems that make the whole work better
– from the inception of a project right
through the successful operation in a
responsible and sustainable manner.
he JBCC has served the southern
African building industry since the
mid-1980s under that name
representing the construction industry
whose members volunteer their services
and knowledge to draft building contracts
with an equitable distribution of
contractual risk.
Having been with the company for just
over eight years, he administers and
coordinates activities of the JBCC not only
as a not-for-profit company but as a going
concern. This includes liaising with organs
of state and participating in a variety of
annual and other industry events countywide.
“JBCC agreements lead the field because
the agreements are written more concisely
and in a manner, that is easily understood
by users, thereby avoiding disputes,”
he explains.
Adaptation to change is what fascinates
Putlitz about the industry. “It has
constantly changed to meet climatic and
occupational requirements as mankind has
developed new technologies including the
industrial revolution and now the digital
revolution,” he says.
The industry has changed away from a
craft-oriented builder whose staff carried
out the bulk of the work to one where more
work is done by specialist subcontractors
often using sophisticated manufacturing
and installation techniques – generally
completing work faster than only 50 years
ago. “The need for speed and utilisation of
outside resources pose new challenges for
the building contractor,” he says.
Training and retaining qualified staff is
not easy in an uncertain economy where
retrenchments at the end of a project are
not infrequent as there is not a steady
Uwe Putlitz from JBCC.
“Consequently, I qualified as a project
manager to implement this thinking.
Building contracts form part of this process:
as a binding legal agreement between the
parties, as well a tool to manage the
building process – and more importantly, if
correctly used, these contracts represent a
powerful dispute avoidance discipline,” he
says. He has been involved as a team
member on several commercial, industrial
and health care projects. “I was also
involved with the Gautrain Hatfield Station
project,” he says.
He believes in JBBC agreements and
says that they have a potential to be the
preferred standard form of contract
throughout the entire African continent.
“I still would like to see our agreements
being used throughout the continent,”
he concludes.
RESIDENTIAL // COMMERCIAL // INDUSTRIAL
MARCH 2018
25