Ghanaian Engineers To Push For Highest Professional Standards

The Ghana Institution of Engineering (GhIE) is leading an advocacy on behalf of the engineering community for the passage of a Legislative Instrument (LI) to fully implement the Engineering Council Act, (Act 819, 2011).

The Act establishes a Council, the Engineering Council of Ghana (ECGh), with a 9-member governing Board.

The objective of the Council is to secure the highest professional standards in the practice of engineering in Ghana.

As part of the push for the implementation of the Act, the GhIE, under the sponsorship of the BUSAC Fund, organised two separate sensitisation workshops: one at the Takoradi Technical University on February 7, 2018 and the other in Accra at the Engineering Centre on Tuesday, February 13, 2018.

- Ing. Dr. Kwame Boakye, making his presentation at the Engineers Centre

Making his presentation as one of the resource persons for the advocacy, Ing. Dr. Kwame Boakye, the Immediate Past President of GhIE and the Chairman of the Advocacy implementation team, said that plans are underway to organize a third sensitization workshop in Kumasi in order to further increase the awareness of the Act and the need for the LI.

Ing. Dr. Boakye said that since the enactment of the Act in 2011, there has been a need for an LI to enable the effective implementation of the Act and to translate it from the academic environment to practical environment for the Engineering community.

Ing. Dr. Boakye explained that the existence of such an LI will provide an additional legal basis for the performance of the Council’s functions, thus, making the work of the Council more effective.

It is against this background that all Engineering Practitioners are invited to participate in this sensitisation programme to ensure that as many members are informed about the need for an LI and solicit input and feedback.

- Implementation committee members
Giving details of what is expected to be contained in the proposed LI, Ing. Ebenezer Haizel, Legal Consultant of the Implementation team, touched on areas such as:

• Approach to Regulation
• Registration And Accreditation of Licensed Bodies

• Registration of Engineering Practitioners
• Registration of Engineering Firms
• Registration And Accreditation of Educational Units that offer Engineering as a Course of Instruction to operate in the country.

• Public Identification of Engineering Expertise.

• Discipline of Registered Engineering Practitioners, Engineering companies and firms

• Miscellaneous Provisions and Schedule
A proposed draft LI will subsequently be prepared and submitted to the government to make regulations in accordance with section 45 of the Act.

This process will achieve the following:
- To prescribe details of Registers to be kept;
- To provide for the discipline of registered engineering practitioners, engineering companies and firms;

- To prescribe matters relating to professional standards;

- Relating to approval of Engineering Documents and Works;

- To prescribe the fees to be paid under this Act;
- To prescribe conditions for the issuance of a valid certificate by the Board; and

- To provide generally for any other matter necessary for the effective implementation of the provisions of this Act.

The evening program was attended by the President-elect of the GhIE, Ing.Steve Anoff Amoaning-Yankson, Council members, Past Presidents of GhIE and Ghana Consulting Engineers, executives of other Engineering bodies and the general public.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com