The project contract in conjunction with the award letter, is used by the CIDB to determine your works capability.

Works capability refers to the largest completed single contract that was ever awarded to your construction company within the past 5 years.

The CIDB is interested in your largest contract in order to determine what score they should allocate to your construction company, by virtue of you having demonstrated that you can successfully carry out a construction project.

In determining this, they will look at, what was the value of the highest contract within the past 5 years, what was the nature of the project and whether that particular project was completed by your company satisfactorily.

Depending on how well you score with the above factors, the CIDB will allocate a score accordingly.

The higher the score, the greater your CIDB level. The greater your CIDB level, the greater your ability to bid for a far much greater monetary value construction contract in the future.

Now, the CIDB recommends from four of the leading bodies when it comes to construction contract templates.

These bodies include, the Joint buildings contract committee, the South African Institute of Civil engineering, the International Federations of consulting engineers and the New engineering contracts.

Two of these are more internationally oriented whereas the remaining two are South African oriented.

The Joint buildings contract committee as well as the South African Institute of Civil engineering are the two construction contract bodies that generate construction project contracts for the Southern African countries whereas

The International Federation of consulting engineers as well as the new engineering contracts bodies serve the international market.

Out of the construction contract bodies, we have identified 4 these that can be used in the South African scenario and these include

• The simple standardized contract for the supply of construction goods only
• The standardized contract for the supply of professional services
• The standardized contract for the supply of labor & engineering
• As well as the standardized sub-contractor’s agreement.

These contracts are developed to standardize the construction contract and hence remove any misunderstandings whilst at the same time, providing uniformity in the construction sector.

Although the CIDB recommends that these contracts be used by the public sector, there is nothing that prevents the general public from using these beautifully crafted construction contract templates.

If you are in the private sector and are busy looking for the perfect contract template that will be used or accepted by the CIDB, then our vote of confidence is placed on the above-mentioned construction templates.

Fixonate recommends that private sector clients use these templates and customize them to suite their agenda.

The contracts are very useful in such a way that once used by your construction company,

They will at least meet the minimum requirements of ensuring that, at least the contract is printed on the letter head of the employer.

That at least the contact details of the employer’s representative is included on the contract.

That the contract stipulates the expected start date of delivery.

That the contract clearly states the terms of the performance criteria.

It will make provision for both parties to sign and agree on the terms and legal provisions contained therein.

It will clearly state the amounts to be paid, by when, any retention fees as well as the defects liability period and any penalties that may accrue on the contract.

These contracts can be found on the relevant bodies’ websites in PDF format.

Clients can download the PDF documents and convert these into a word document which can be customized according to the client’s needs.

It is advised that clients remove any logos of the CIDB on these contracts as this might be a violation of the copy right laws.

Clients must insert their own logos and must customize these contracts to meet their actual construction contract needs.

If you don’t have a PDF converter, you can access a link to our website for the word version of these contract.

To conclude, it is important to use the correct format of the constructions contract for the purposes of the CIDB to enable it to accept, study and determine the CIDB level you should be qualifying for in your CIDB registration & upgrade process.