Not many noticed a sporadic statement by the director general of the Ministry of Housing, Aviad Friedman, when he recently presented a figure, amazing in itself, according to which more than 40 percent of cases contractors finish projects more than a year late, and in 83 percent of cases exceed 60 days The grace of being late that they receive.
These data were thrown into the air by Friedman, without taking any responsibility for the real causes of the phenomenon, which the Ministry of Housing and other government ministries had to prevent in advance.
As always, the culprits were found.
of course.
The rebellious contractors.
First, let’s start with the insight that it takes about half a year on average to get a Form 4, i.e. a certificate that the building can be inhabited.
Really wonderful.
Officials from the Ministry of Housing, officials in the municipalities, the HAGA, the fire brigade, the electricity company, who sit in the glorious office in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, have literally "discovered America." And make us, the contractors, take off our pants and in many cases also go bankrupt?
Second, not only are we contractors harmed by this.
Those who pay for it first and foremost are the apartment buyers, including the sons and daughters of those officials who are forced to pay much more money for this unnecessary bureaucracy.
Thirdly, a delay of a year or more has of course a critical significance to the pace of construction starts and especially to everything related to "apartments on the shelf".
It is clear that if the construction of a project takes between four and five years, instead of three years, this has implications for the supply of housing and especially for housing prices.
Fourth, hundreds of thousands of people employed in the industry are also affected by the situation.
As you may recall, I have written several times before about the fact that every year 500 contractors, perhaps even more, go bankrupt and many hundreds more run into difficulties.
But behind the contractors there are hundreds of thousands who make a living from the industry.
Fifth, worse is the fact that the decision-makers, especially in the last three years of the Corona plague, the Russia-Ukraine war, the shortage of construction materials and the global economic crisis, and the banks blowing in the back of our necks, have completely ignored the impossible reality we have to fight 24/7.
For example, the shortage of at least 50-60 thousand workers in the construction industry.
It is clearly clear that if these workers had been added, then the pace of construction would have been much faster, there would have been far fewer delays in delivering apartments and far fewer contractors would have run into difficulties.
Sixth, it is clear that if the government, which is known to have a budget in abundance billions, had taken care to release the cork of receiving Form 4, and at the same time lower the taxation on iron, wood and other building materials, not to mention Nesher's total monopoly, it is clear that Even then the situation could have been much better.
In order for the number of delays in the delivery of apartments not to jump to 80 percent or more per year, it is better for them to finally start addressing the causes of the same pus, instead of throwing useless sentences into the air.
In Form 4 do you remember?
You are the ones who should get a score of 4 - not enough!
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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