08 Jul 2014

Transport and communications minister, Mr Nonofo Molefhi has voiced out his disappointment over some members of the Botswana Institute of Engineers (BIE) who fail to honour their subscriptions.

Speaking at the BIE fundraising dinner in Gaborone on July 5, Mr Molefhi said a professional institution should lead by example as that would give their clients trust and confidence in them, but failure to honour subscriptions would leave a lot to be desired.

He said associations, unions and institutions such as BIE could not survive without members paying their monthly or annual subscriptions as the little money from subscriptions were used to run the day to day activities of the institution.

Minister Molefhi said BIE was a professional institution catering for all disciplines of engineering, formed 30 years ago and that the institution has been bringing together persons whose qualification, experiences, duties and activities were driven by the field of science and engineering in order to develop the engineering field to greater heights.

He said the introduction of the Engineering Registration Board (ERB) would ensure that the registration of engineers further the development of the sector as engineers with acceptable qualifications, experience and good ethics were encouraged to register.

Mr Molefhi said it was a practice common in all developed and some developing countries and that was the reason why Botswana adopted the move that would give focus on future aspirations as a nation and realise prosperity for all Batswana.

He said the ERB was a regulator that would regulate the conduct of engineers for the betterment of the engineering profession, improvement of service delivery and advancement of the country as a whole.

He said ERB would expect the registered professional engineer to accumulate certain number of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) points, and to have time to show record of continued involvement in the engineering profession in terms of work-related activities.

The minister further said the main objective of the board was to protect the public against unscrupulous engineers but would at the same time, improve the standards of engineering and enhance the profession.

He said on the other hand the BIE was responsible for ensuring high standards of qualification, training, professional conduct and ethics among members of the institution.

The minister said in recent years, and even to date, Botswana has been grappling with projects that either go into time and cost over-run or were completely abandoned before completion and said most of these evils emanate from the engineering profession that was flooded by chancers and fly-by-night practitioners.

He said the implication was that as a country, government had realised that the only way to achieve sustained development and prosperity was to improve the standards and quality of the engineering profession.

For her part, the BIE president, Ms Linda Moseki expressed concern about some members who were not willing to pay their contributions as that renders the institution bankrupt and appealed to them to honour their subscriptions.

Ms Moseki said their annual general meeting failed several times due to lack of quorum as some members were now dragging their feet to attend to the institution’s activities adding that by so doing it becomes very difficult for them as the executive committee to run the institution.

She said they had over 1 000 members and only 20 per cent of the registered members pay their annual contributions which was not enough to run the annual institution’s activities. ENDS