Engineers need licence, certification to practise

 Mr Ashigbey (right), welcoming Prof Ampadu to his office

ENGINEERS will now be licensed and certified before they can practise.

This follows the passage of the Engineering Council Bill to replace the existing NRC Decree 145 of 1973.

The President of the Ghana Institution of Engineers (GIE), Professor Samuel I. K. Ampadu, who made this known, said the new act would help regulate the engineering profession and practice in the country.

Speaking during a courtesy call on the Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Ken Ashigbey, last Wednesday, Prof Ampadu said the act would allow council to oversee and regulate the practice of the engineering profession in Ghana.

The President of the GIE, who is also the Provost of the College of Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), indicated that the institution was reorganising itself to ensure its contribution to the country’s development.

He was accompanied by six members of the GIE — the Executive Secretary, Ing Joseph Buckson; the Vice-President, Ing Magnus Quarshie Quarshie, and the new President-elect, Ing Ben Aniagyei.

Others were the Chairman of Public and International Affairs of the institution, Ing Theophilus Okai, and the immediate past President, Ing Albert Ogyiri.

Prof Ampadu said officials of the GIE were also putting in place two key projects meant to dissuade negative public perception of engineers in general.

“We have come to realise that public interaction only occurs in situations of engineering failure, which gives the public divided opinion about the engineer’s competence,” he said.

In that light, he said, the institution had outlined a project aimed at demystifying engineering by bringing it closer to the public.

Mr Ashigbey, who expressed delight at the passage of a law to regulate engineering practice, indicated that development must not only focus on commerce and industry.

“The evolving nature of technology has made engineering a prerequisite tool which needs to be properly streamlined for development purposes,” he said.

He also called for a peer review of designs by the institution as a way of encouraging institutional growth and individual capacity building.

“I believe peer review among ourselves will reduce bad design defects,” he said.

Mr Ashigbey charged the institution to collaborate with tertiary institutions offering programmes in engineering to ensure a redevelopment of curricula  in line with modern trends in engineering.

He also called for appropriate mentorship programmes for young graduates for them to become shareholders of the country’s engineering set-ups.

Present at the meeting was the GCGL’s General Manager in charge of Technical Services, Mr Kwesi Adjei Kersi.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Tue  June 12, 2012