The judging team for this year’s Master Builders South Africa (MBSA) 2015 Health and Safety Competition will journey to 21 cities and towns located in seven provinces to visit this year’s building site entries.

Pierre Fourie, Operations Director of MBSA, says this year’s entries range from the refurbishment of the oldest building in the country, the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, to the construction of the most modern and challenging projects.

Among the projects entered are new buildings at four academic institutions (including a new National English Literacy museum), a new school, projects at two power plants, two refineries, medical facilities, and several commercial and industrial projects.

The construction industry’s Health and Safety Competition had its origins in 1963 when the first Building Safety Competition was held by NOSA, in collaboration with the Master Builders Association.

It took place in what was then Natal province, with the only facet then adjudicated on being “Housekeeping”. In 1964, it became a national competition and extended to two categories: “Building” and “Allied Trades”.

It has grown extensively over the years and today, the Master Builders SA National Safety competition is a comprehensive, well supported annual event open to all MBSA members and Federated Employers Mutual (FEM) Assurance policy holders.

Furthermore, each of the Master Builder Associations in South Africa holds regional competitions and the respective winners are then entered into the national MBSA competition. In total, over 250 companies usually participate in the regional competitions.

Pressure on the judging panel

For the annual national competition which has 10 different categories, MBSA arranges for the qualifying entries to be judged and appoints independent, qualified and experienced auditors to assess the sites, making use of a comprehensive audit system.

“Between 40 to 50 sites are entered on an annual basis with only a small window of opportunity during which a site can be judged – usually when the work is at peak, so this puts a fair amount of pressure on our judging panel.”

“The high number of entries is always gratifying, as is the extremely high standard the entrants subscribe to. It reflects the SA building industry’s growing concern about safety on site,” states Fourie.

The national awards will be presented at a FEM/Master Builders SA dinner in September 2015 in Johannesburg, which forms part of the annual Master Builders SA Congress.