The Construction Industry Federation (CIF) representatives met with the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) leader McHenry Venaani on Monday.

The CIF is lobbying the lawmaker to fast-track a proposed bill that will allow the industry to be regulated by a Construction Council.

Before commencing with the closed door meeting McHenry Venaani and the CIF team engaged the media.

Both parties are of the view that the construction industry was one that was hard hit the by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Venaani lamented that the industry needs to be regulated saying that most capital projects are outsourced to foreign contractors.

"Instead of giving every company which does that job 2/3 kilometers, so that you have more companies participating, you are giving that job to one company and that is the penetration, and we must be open and frank, the penetration of the Chinese is also not helping our industry. We have allowed way too many Chinese in our industry."

Venaani further added, "look at the condom tender, these things can be distributed to many companies, N$650 million is a lot and you just give it to one person."

Many projects, are often left unfinished, and sometimes the cost of these projects are up to the contractor and this boils down to lawlessness in the sector.

The CIF has since 2006 been attempting to establish a national construction council. But the buck has stopped with parliament.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Construction Industry Federation, Barbel Kirchner said, "we really need to see to it that this process passes through parliament, at the same time we are concerned that our industry is not performing very well, there is a very high foreign involvement in our industry and this is affecting local contractors."