The regulation on site managers published by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation sets out clearly the duties of site managers, the principles and rules to be applied, the working procedures to be followed, and the full scope of their responsibilities.
Regrettably, in Turkey, the engineers and architects who take on site management roles for Class 3 Group B buildings, that is, residential buildings with a height of less than 21.5 metres, do little more than sign a site management contract and accept a nominal fee of 5,000 TL in exchange for assuming full legal responsibility for the entire structure. In practice, many of them never set foot on site even once. Yet on paper, every construction site appears to have a site manager in post. There is no system in place to verify whether this is actually the case. Sites are supervised informally by contractors who often lack the technical knowledge to do so properly, and the process is concluded with just one or two inspections by the building control authority. I ask you plainly: what are the chances that a building constructed under these conditions is structurally sound? And what are the chances that health and safety on that site is being properly managed? The answer, without question, is none.
This dysfunctional system continues unchecked. I watch television and see professors and well-regarded commentators speaking at length in the aftermath of earthquakes. Yet not one of them addresses this specific issue. The reason is that they do not know what is going wrong within the system, because they are not part of it. Our respected academics are focused on teaching their students the right way to do things within the university environment, and it is entirely understandable that they are not aware of what is happening on the ground.
So how can this system be fixed? There are currently thousands of qualified civil engineers and architects who are out of work, precisely because the system that should be functioning correctly has shut them out. The remedy is straightforward. For every building, a site manager should be contracted. Each site manager should be permitted to oversee up to five separate sites. They should be present on each site at least once a week, carrying out all necessary duties and attending in person whenever an urgent situation arises. The contractor for each building could pay that engineer a modest monthly fee of 5,000 TL. An engineer overseeing five sites would therefore earn 25,000 TL per month, providing a viable livelihood and keeping qualified professionals in work. Every building would be supervised throughout the construction period by a civil engineer or architect. Given that a contractor typically completes a building within a year, the total cost to the contractor would amount to approximately 60,000 TL. Having these professionals present on site, ensuring correct workmanship, and bearing ongoing responsibility for the building thereafter is a matter of the utmost importance. If this approach were adopted, our buildings would be far better equipped to withstand earthquakes, and the thousands of architects and civil engineers we have trained would no longer be left without work.
