By Tausi Nakato
The Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers (UIPE) has asked Parliament to expedite the amendment of the 1969 Act to reduce the number of lives lost during shoddy construction works.
Eng Andrew Muhwezi, the President UIPE, says the government must expedite the amendment process of the Engineers’ Registration Act (2012), with the aim of ensuring better regulation of the sector.
According to him, the Act is “too outdated” to cater for the current and emerging challenges that affect the profession.
“The law that regulates the practice of engineering has some weaknesses; we are dealing with a law that was enacted in 1969. The government should expedite the amendment process of the Engineers’ Registration Act (2012) which will weed out quack engineers,’’ he said.
The Engineers were speaking in Jinja City during the Waligo Memorial Lecture, an annual event aimed at remembering the former Prime Minister of Uganda, Eng Abraham Nkalubo Waligo, who was also the first Electrical Engineer in East and Central Africa.
The Engineers’ request comes in the wake of the collapse of buildings, bridges and roads before their lifespan due to unregistered Engineers.
According to Eng Muhwezi, amendment of the Engineers’ Registration Act (2012) will compel all engineers to have a practicing certificate so that sanity can prevail in the sector.
While data from the Uganda Engineering Registration Board indicates that only 1,642 engineers out of 20,000 are registered, UIPE records show that there are over 5,000 engineers countrywide, with only 2,000 being registered.
Eng Muhwezi further cited using untested materials, inadequate supervision of developers and side-stepping the advice of engineers as some of the reasons for the collapse of infrastructure.
Eng Ziria Tibalwa, the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) chief executive officer, challenged her colleagues to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI), which she says is the where the world is drifting to and adopting.
