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Apr 07, 2017 News
For years, engineers individually and collectively under the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE) have expressed the need for an Act of parliament which will govern professional engineers.
Based on records, the latest update on such a law is the Engineering Professional Bill of 1998. It is unclear why after almost 20 years the proposed Bill has not been passed in Parliament particularly with frequent complaints of shoddy work being done on public projects.
According to veteran engineer and Managing Director of Ground Structures Engineering Consultants, Charles Ceres, if there is to be an Act addressing professional engineers, the law should contain penalties which can be applied to errant engineers.
Ceres said that he would have seen the proposed Bill years ago. However, he said that the Bill mainly addressed the differentiation between who is qualified to be an engineer as against those who are not.
He said that if the Bill is presented and contains penalties relating to works which engineers would have carried out, then he would offer his support.
An excerpt of the 1998 Bill revealed a number of areas that are covered under the proposed Bill. These include ‘Practice of Engineering by Organisations’ and ‘Registration of Engineers’.
According to the Bill, there shall be a Board of Engineering which can appoint a Registrar of Engineers as it deems necessary. The registrar would then be expected to keep a Register of Engineers in which the registrar shall enter information of every engineer whose registration was approved by the Board.
The information recorded will include the person’s name, residential address and business address, date of registration, a description of and the date on which the qualification entitling him to be registered was obtained, the engineering discipline which he or she is authorised to practise under the Act and such other details as may be prescribed by the Board.
Further, the Registrar can be instructed by the Board to remove from the register the name of an engineer who is deceased or is no longer qualified to practise engineering in Guyana. Likewise, the registrar can be instructed to restore a name which was taken off.
Before a person can be registered as an engineer that person must satisfy the Board that he or she can write and speak English to a standard approved by the Board, is of good character and satisfies the requirements set out in the Fourth Schedule of the Act.
Further, the Registrar shall publish in the Gazette in every quarter of each year, an alphabetical list of the names of persons who are registered with the Board.
After engineers would have been registered with the Board, the latter may cancel or suspend the registration of a person or reprimand a person if he has been found guilty of a breach of the Code of Ethics and Practice Engineers.
The Board may cancel or suspend for any period, the registration of an engineer, if a court of competent jurisdiction or a body constituted under this Act to decide on the matter, discovered him to be a convicted felon, guilty of gross incompetence in his practice; guilty of fraud or deceit in obtaining registration; violating a provision of this Act; aiding or abetting any person in the violation of a provision of this Act or declared insane.
In addition, the Board shall publish the name of an engineer whose registration is cancelled or suspended as soon as practicable after cancellation or suspension in the Gazette. In the event that an engineer’s registration with the Board is cancelled or suspended, the Board may reinstate the registration of a person only after six months would have expired after cancellation or suspension.
As it relates to complaints made against engineers, the Bill allows for an aggrieved person to submit to the Board a complaint setting out the alleged facts and arguments in support in writing.
To hear these complaints, the Board has the power to appoint a Disciplinary Committee comprised of three or more engineers who shall adjudicate upon alleged breaches of the Code of Ethics and Practice.
The Disciplinary Committee can then make recommendations to the Board which it considers appropriate if an allegation holds merit. If an engineer is found to be in violation of the Code of Ethics, the Board may order such engineer to pay costs in relation to any hearing before the Disciplinary Committee.
Speaking on engineers being held accountable for slapdash work, particularly in the execution of government projects, Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson had told this newspaper last year that proposals have already been accepted from various stakeholders regarding the improvement of the old legislations.
He said firmly that the shoddy work which was once accepted in the past by engineers will not be encouraged under his tenure. Patterson had acknowledged receiving submissions from the GAPE and stressed that he is determined to return a sense of transparency to the field.
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