THE Housing Authority should hire its own architects instead of relying on developers to maintain construction standards under the Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS), the president of the Hongkong Institute of Architects, Mr Dennis Lau Wing-kwong, said yesterday.
Mr Lau said it was difficult for the Government's monitoring team, which would occasionally visit a construction site, to keep a close watch on work.
It was also difficult to strengthen monitoring by amending the present Conditions of Sale.
A practical way to ensure the quality of flats built under the scheme was for government architects to carry out on-site supervision, he said.
There had been allegations that unscrupulous contractors maximised profits by keeping construction costs down.
Contractors were tempted to do so because the selling price of the flats was fixed by the Housing Authority and the only way to compensate for the narrow profit margin was by squeezing costs at the expense of building quality.
Mr Lau said that contracts awarded under the scheme were mostly dominated by developers which had their own construction arms.