Local engineers feel they are being overlooked

Apr 29, 2013 News

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– GAPE president

By Abena Rockcliffe
Even as the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE) celebrated its 45th anniversary, the organization’s president, Joel Trotman expressed that there is a perception among local engineers and engineering firms that they are being overlooked when it comes to spearheading major projects.
Trotman’s utterances were made at the entity’s anniversary dinner held last Saturday at the Georgetown Club. The event was graced by the presence of President Donald Ramotar, who did the feature address; and Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who was there in the capacity of a Guyanese engineer.
Trotman expressed the dire need for mechanisms to be put into place so that Guyanese engineers can become technically trained on par with those internationally.
He noted that the University of Guyana is a major concern to GAPE, as GAPE’s belief is that for the country to move forward, at the advantage of local engineers, there must be a cadre of professional design engineers.
However, during a subsequent interview, Trotman said that local engineers don’t stand a chance at getting major contracts mainly because of the preconditions that make them ineligible.
Trotman said that there are few effective ways to tackle the issue. He first identified that there needs to be a transfer of technology.
He advised that all contracts between Guyana and foreign contractors should have an embodied clause that secures the transfer of technology to local engineers.
In other words, the long time engineer is saying that if Guyanese are allowed to work along with foreign contractors on major projects, over a period of time, they too will become capable of producing at the levels of international standards.
Secondly, Trotman opined that everything done in the educational sector should be geared towards satisfying the developmental needs of Guyana.
In that regard, he said that many projects need special engineering training and noted that the University of Guyana only offers undergraduate training in the engineering field.
Trotman said that an undergraduate programme would be insufficient to adequately equip an engineer to execute certain projects, which, he noted, means that for there to be improvement, there needs to be a post graduate programme.
Emphasizing his point about specializing, Trotman pointed out that there has never been a hydro project in Guyana before; hence no Guyanese engineer would have had the experience or even capability to successfully man the project.
He said that as it is, each time Guyana ventures into a project of high magnitude, the country will need to seek foreign expertise.
With that being pointed out, the engineer said that Guyana needs to look ahead and train accordingly. He even suggested scholarships, and noted that those can then come back and share or even teach at the University level.
“It must be noted what I am saying, I am not saying that the government is intentionally overlooking local engineers, it’s just that there is a lacking of developmental opportunities for local engineers.”
In his address President Ramotar congratulated GAPE on its 45th anniversary and noted that its “work has improved the standards of our country.”
He said that it had been heartening to see the works of the engineering groups over the years and expressed that they have contributed significantly to the infrastructural improvements of Guyana.
Even though making his speech about engineers, Ramotar used the opportunity to make yet another statement on the recent budget cuts.
He told the gathering that it was “heart wrenching to see some of the cuts to our engineering projects that will contribute towards further improvement.”
He said that the opposition butchered the potential of cheaper electricity in Guyana when it cut allocations that the government had provided for the Amelia Falls project. He emphasized that he saw no logic in cutting the Amaila Falls project.
The President also mentioned that the Tourism sector cannot be boosted without the infrastructure which can be done through the Marriott Hotel and Cheddi Jagan International Airport projects, “but they have been butchered.”
With that, the President said that he will do everything legally possible and necessary to reverse the cuts made to the budget so that the progress of the country won’t be halted and the engineers would not be further frustrated.
However, none of the projects that the President mentioned are any that Guyanese engineers are actually working on.
Nevertheless, he urged all engineers at the event to be examples and implore health and safety practices at their various work sites.

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