RE-ENGINEERING OUR PRIORITIES (JAN 30)

The Ghana Institution of Engineers (GhIE) has made an urgent appeal to our government and the legislature to expedite action on the Engineering Council Bill to enable society to monitor and hold engineers accountable for the execution of public works.
The Bill, which was read for the first time before the dissolution of the 4th Parliament, seeks among other things to strengthen the capacity of the GhIE to effectively regulate and raise the standard of engineering practice in the country.
It is indefensible that 51 years after nationhood, we are yet to put in place the legislative framework to regulate engineering practice in the country. Consequently, our professionals have attracted the ire of members of the public for a lack of professionalism, especially in the management of the country's infrastructure base.
Sometimes, acts of impunity are carried out with the connivance of professionals, such as engineers, surveyors, architects and their collaborators working for the statutory organisations like district assemblies and the Town and Country Planning Department, as well as the Lands Department.
Lives and property have been lost through the negligence of officials of these organisations. We recall with sorrow the loss of lives and property during the heavy rainfall in Accra and other cities because certain unscrupulous people encroached on watercourses and other unauthorised places.
It is sad that on occasions when public officials are compelled to act to restore some sanity in the system, some of our compatriots have intervened to halt the demolition of structures on watercourses and other public facilities.
Indeed, our district assemblies have elaborate bye-laws dealing with some of the challenges posed by improper siting of physical facilities. We know that by law nobody can put a block in the sand without approval from the district assemblies and other statutory bodies and yet our communities are littered with all kinds of unauthorised structures with the inscription “stop work produce permit now!”
Unfortunately, nobody complies with these orders because in the construction industry, those inscriptions have become euphemism for “go ahead with your work but come and see us in chambers”. We believe that the level of disregard for statutory planning has reached a stage where urgent action is needed to control encroachment on public monuments such as the motorway.
The signs of doom and gloom stare us in the face judging from the calamities inflicted on society by floods and collapsed buildings. In some of these instances where buildings collapsed leading to loss of lives in Accra, Kumasi and Tema, nobody was held liable although initial investigations established that basic building regulations were flouted.
The Daily Graphic hopes that the Engineering Council Bill will not just add to the literature of statutes but will become a functional instrument to make engineers responsible and compel the rest of the public wishing to undertake any physical development to comply with the law.
We also call on the government to use our engineers in the implementation of the country's development agenda particularly in areas where science and technology are applicable.
The time has also come for us to redefine our support for science and technology in the country so that the twin discipline can play a leading role in our quest to attain a middle-income status within the next decade.
The Daily Graphic welcomes the decision of the Mills government to re-align the agencies under Environment, Science and Technology into a ministry to spearhead the development of a knowledge-based society in an environmentally friendly manner.