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Government urged to expedite action on
Engineering Act
Accra, Nov. 30, Ghanadot/GNA - Government must expedite
action on the enactment of a comprehensive engineering act
in order to regulate engineering practice in the country and
ensure that unprofessional practice did not have a negative
impact on the national development agenda, Dr Essel Ben
Hagan, President of the Ghana Institution of Engineers, said
on Thursday.
"The Engineering Act would restrict the creation,
preparation authorisation and provision of engineering
products and services to only those registered under the Act
and a person shall not operate an engineering firm unless
the person is registered," Dr Hagan said.
Dr. Hagan was speaking at the 38th Presidential address
organised by the Ghana Institution of Engineers in Accra on
the theme: "Sustaining the 3e Nexus in Ghana: Engineering,
Energy and Economic growth."
He said the nation could not effectively engender and
harness its engineering potentials to support the energy
sector for economic growth without a clear-cut and enabled
institutional and legal framework to regulate engineering
practice.
Dr. Hagan also called for the establishment of a Engineering
Council, which would help regulate the practice.
"The close connection between engineering and energy
services needs to be effectively harnessed to support the
nation's economic growth and this can be achieved through
the pursuit of capacity building in indigenous engineering
firms, facilitating innovation in the energy sector and
regulation of engineering practice."
Dr Hagan said the nation required a technologically prepared
workforce to address the challenges posed by the planned
expansion of the energy sector.
He urged indigenous engineering firms to participate in
continuing education programmes and other postgraduate
training schemes to ensure that their engineering staff
would be able to use new technologies especially those
relating to the energy sector.
"The benefits of such training to economic growth would be
manifested in improved productivity of engineers and
increase in the speed at which the nation can adopt modern
technologies to provide quality engineering services to the
energy sector," he said.
Dr Hagan appealed to the government and the private sector
to provide adequate resources for research institutions in
the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
and the universities to enable them to develop innovative
technologies in renewable energy that could exploit
indigenous resources to complement conventional energy
supply systems.
The first 27 copies of the address booklet were auctioned
for GH¢ 5,450.
GNA
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