The significant increase in the cost of engineers and laborers to undertake local construction projects worries the Construction Industry Council.

Council Chief Executive Vijay Naidu says this follows the increase in expatriates hired from overseas countries by construction companies to conduct the building work.

Naidu says due to the lack of qualified workers, companies have to pay extra, hiring expatriates during the construction period

“We need expertise and if it’s not available locally, we have to go overseas so that’s why people like most of the building here we don’t have specifically qualified engineers to look at marine side of construction. For example, we have a lot of pile drivers for larger buildings, if there is a fault line or something with the piles then we need to go back and get engineers from overseas because we don’t have many qualified engineers, not many of them in this country.”

Naidu says the University of the South Pacific has introduced a new Civil Engineering course this year to help address the issue.

He adds they are also working with the Fiji National University and the Fiji Higher Education Commission to introduce course materials for local engineers and labourers.