How ERB gears for engineers development in Tanzania.

ASCERTAINING and certifying practicing engineers is among the vital roles played by the Engineers Registration Board in the country. The Board ensures that safety standards and quality performances are adhered to at any construction site in order to avoid any possible complaints that may arise from the general public resulting from shoddy construction jobs in various projects undertaken. ERB is one of the most important and the oldest Boards in the history of the construction industry in Tanzania. It’s a statutory body founded in 1968 and later re-established under the Engineers’ Registration Act No. 115 of 1997. The Board is responsible for monitoring and regulating the conduct of engineering practice in Tanzania, regulating engineering activities so as to enhance and strengthen the professional competence of engineers and engineering consulting firms in the country. Hitherto, the board has registered about 8,500 engineers in the country. Among the most important roles being played by ERB is to ensure excellent work performances by engineers along with adherence to the laid-down norms and regulations, registration and implementation of control mechanism to ensure that the end products are well done and safe. To implement its mandate, the Board has the capacity to screen, generate and effect engineering applications as well as offer solutions to engineering-related problems. It is the engineers who conduct research on design, manage operations, maintain and repair structures, machines, plants and equipment. The role of engineers within construction sector in any country is of critical importance to socio-economic development since without a sound infrastructure few industries, if any at all cannot operate efficiently. Engineers have to choose the right material, with high quality and balance them to get value for money. In view of this, Tanzania’s ERB Board is very keen to ensure that construction sector in the country employs a large number of job seekers mostly engineers who are greatly needed for building and maintaining various infrastructure needed for national development. The building of the important infrastructures such as the airports, roads, harbours, sewerage facilities, communication facilities, water treatment plants, drilling boreholes, just to mention but a few entirely depends on engineering knowledge. These are examples of fast growing construction industry for Tanzanian economy. The above mentioned infrastructural facilities are given priority in every development set up. They cannot be taken for granted in the processing of building capacity for infrastructure development.

Water engineers at work in the laboratory at DAWASCO water pumping station at Ruvu in Coast region.

The engineering sector among other things also aims at developing local skills, enhance employment opportunities and produce cadres in the industry who are capable of meeting international professional standards. The development of the construction industry in Tanzania has come up as a result of the economic liberalization which in one way or another has driven the country to enter into the international investment forum in order to acquire formal development within the sector. The major challenge is, however, in regard to construction of roads, particularly those in the rural areas since most of them are in a pathetic situation. The situation is a big challenge to civil engineers, the government and private sector to effectively increase their collaboration in addressing the constraints faced. There is a need for taking some decisive steps and measures to nurture and facilitate the growth and development of reputable local engineers and contractors with the requisite professional skill but lack of capital, the issue of financial capacity and technology is a drawback although these can be addressed via national budgetary allocations. In order to enhance the development goals of engineers in the country, the Engineers Registration Board (ERB) has put down a number of strategies for making sure that all illegal engineering works are banned. The strategies are meant for brushing engineers into getting more knowledge so as to keep them abreast with the changing technologies in this era of science and technology. The Board has put forward the Structured Engineers Apprenticeship Program (SEAP) as well as Continuing Professional Development (CDP) programs. These professional short courses raise the capacity buildings in order to cope with the situation so as to meet engineering development goals. To achieve engineering excellence, the ERB Board has put emphasis as its main strategy, to implement both training courses for the betterment of the engineering community in the country. SEAP and CPD, the two are intensive training programs for practicing engineers in the country. The board hitherto considers these programmes as mandatory to all practicing engineers in the country. In SEAP report made available by the Board this year shows that a total of over 1,310 engineers have benefited from this program which is currently financed by the government and are fit for their work wherever appropriate, and have also gained enough experience. According to the Board’s Registrar, Engineer Steven Mlote, the CDP program helps engineers to cope with the development technologies in order to gain hands on skills as everything is done by use of computers. Under this program, an engineer is liable to complete a minimum of 30 professional development units in a year. These are secured after attending workshops and lectures organized by the Board, then later on exams follows. In total an engineer is required to complete 90 units for three years in order to be assessed. For the last seven years ERB Board has carried its work in all Tanzania’s mainland town councils and helped increased the ability of engineers through this training. However, it’s evident that engineering situation in these councils is now better than before, and the Board anticipates good performance in future. In view of this, scores of professional engineers in towns and district councils has increased together with the construction of important infrastructure such as roads, water, electricity etc. The Board is striving hard to get all engineers trained under this program, but lack of enough budget for training courses is a great impediment. According to him, the Board only takes 22 percent of the total 550 engineering graduates of all disciplines to various internship programs in and outside the country. The annual budget amount of money given to the Board by the government is Tsh. 380 million, yet it’s not enough even to cater for all other Board’s activities that includes site visits and other internal office matters in a year. The Board requires the targeted budget of approximately Tsh. 1.6 billion in order to accomplish all its activities.

In August 2008, President Jakaya Kikwete addressed Tanzanian engineers (not in the picture) for his first time since he entered in power in 2005. This was during the 6th Annual Engineers Day which took place at Kunduchi Beach Hotel on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam city. Seated on his left is ERB Board Chairman, Professor Burton Mwamila

The Board has also checked to its best to see that a contractor in the country does not have an engineer. This exercise has been scrutinized through engineers’ Employment Liaison Facility (ELF). The role of ELF is to ensure that those who seeks engineers get them as well as engineers who looks for employers gets them. The Board has helped over 300 engineers to get employment and 109 employers have managed to get professional engineers of various disciplines, this is after linking with the Board which has for long been establishing a link with employers in terms of working for professionalism through ELF. Other activities the Board contends with includes, site inspection in all bigger construction projects including mining activities taking place in all mining sites in the country, the Board also scrutinizes engineers who works in other private institutions such as in factories and in manufacturing industries. The essence of doing this is to ensure that foreign engineers who are employed to carry out these activities in these project sites have enough experience and skills and furthermore to see if they have been registered by the Board prior to the practice of engineering work in the country as the Board’s rules stipulates. Most engineering firms are reluctant to use professional designers or engineers and instead use unprofessional people who have less knowledge of engineering profession for reasons that the professional bodies are more expensive. Either they use a trick of consulting professional bodies and put on their names on the sign boards at the construction sites on the pretext that bare the ones who does the job whereas is not. Investigations by the Board shows that, this is what happens in some of the high rise buildings in some towns and cities in the country. In order to curb the escalating habit which is a challenge, the Board has laid down strategic means of doing site audits in collaborating with other Boards so as to net the culprits. The audit works involves also to find if such sites have enough workers with engineering professional experience on their projects and scrutinize all workers carrying the activities in various industries to see if they have the ability to supervise such construction projects. This is the task that the Board undertakes in order to avoid shoddy construction so as to ensure that engineers in the country are trustworthy, innovative and respected with strong commitments to better quality work as directed in the code of conduct and ethics of engineers. According to ERB Board, it’s clear to engineers that the engineering community in Tanzania is a working brigade for stimulating and spearheading socio-economic development in the country. Outlining the main challenges and problems facing the Board since its re-establishment in 1997, ERB’s Registrar Engineer Steven Mlote noted that, lack of fund to run the entire office activities is a major impediment to the development of the Board. Other problems are lack of the office space, the current office which is along Pamba street in Dar es Salaam is not spacious enough to accommodate the need of the Board members. Another serious problem is lack of transport which is still a big problem facing the Board an aspect that the Board sometimes fails to monitor all its businesses pertaining to engineering works. The main challenges facing the engineering profession in the country is that many engineers shun this profession and joins other professional fields for reasons that it is not paying well, bearing in mind that engineering studies are very tough to understand. Many Tanzanian students do not want to undergo engineering studies on the claims that the content subjects are very tough and if successfully completed their benefits are too little compared to other professional jobs. In view of this fact, the Board has urged the government through the Higher Education Student’s Loan Board (HESLB) to give 100 percent loan to students pursuing engineering profession in various higher learning institutions in the country as inducement to attract more students to learn engineering profession. The Board is on the view of the fact that, they expect to double the number of engineers to 1,000 from the current 550 graduates following the mushrooming of higher learning institutions in the country together with the newly established Dodoma University. According to the statistics made available by the ERB Board, the international ratio standard required of engineers and technicians is that, 1 engineer should have 5 technicians. But in Tanzania, there is a reverse trend in the manner that, there are no enough technicians, and therefore more effort is hereby required to train more technicians as well.