The Institution of Certificated Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, South Africa

Extracts from the Annual Report as presented at the Hundredth Annual General Meeting held on 04th March 2011 

1. Presidents review of 2010 - Mr Obed Leshoro
2. Presidential Address: Mr Obed Letsholo - Engineers in a Developing Country.
3. Finance report for period ending 31 December 2009.
4. Engineering Council SA. (ECSA)
5. SAASTA (South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement)
6. Department of Labour (Dol)
7. Department of Minerals and Energy (DME)
8. ICMEESA Membership
9. Editorial

Presidents Review of 2009

In accordance with clause 4.03 of the Constitution, the Council has pleasure in presenting the Ninety-Ninth Annual Report and Financial Statement for the year ended 31 December 2009

The past year once again has been a busy year for all. I am grateful for the way individuals managed their time and kept to commitments over and above their work load and daily tasks. The members of EXCO and Council still managed to put a tremendous amount of time and energy into the operational matters of the Institution.
This Annual report serves to provide a brief summary of some of the actions taken during the year. The extent of the matters attended to are not necessarily limited to what is reflected in the report.

Activities of the Institution during the year are as follows:

• ECSA was again approached, in a form of a presentation to the acting CEO and registration manager of ECSA, earlier in the year about the difficulty experienced by members to be accepted as Professional Certificated Engineers by the Registration Committee. This issue has not been resolved as yet and continues to enjoy attention from Council. The main problem of this issue is the fact that the requirement for registration is a legal appointment and many firms insisting on Pr Registration before making an appointment. Secondly, there are many Certificated Engineers who are very capable and knowledgeable, who do not work in the environment where an appointment is necessary, and as such cannot become registered as a result.
  The matter was escalated to the ECSA council which has requested the newly appointed CEO to investigate and resolve, as membership of ECSA and especially registration of professionals are regarded as of utmost importance by the ECSA council.
• There continues to be an increase in membership applications. This resulted in a growth of 95 new members, which is good for the Institution.
• The Gauteng (Central), Klerksdorp and Rustenburg branches of the Institution remain dormant as attempts to revive these branches have failed. Mr Lambert has now taken over as chairman for the Central branch, we wish him well in his endeavour.
• Communication. Four newsletters have been produced and distributed, together with the Western Cape Bulletin, to all members during the year. Still a concern is communication due to the high number of members whose email addresses we either do not have or that are outdated.
• Our webmaster has set up a communication Blog and has slowly taken off.
• Bursaries. The Institution has 2 bursars registered of which one has now graduated and awarded the BSc Eng Degree. We are currently seeking additional candidates who would fit our profile.
• Continued Professional Development (CPD). There have been a number of courses validated for CPD points. This area continues to be an opportunity for the Institution to provide useful input to members. All locally presented talks and events could be registered with ECSA as they happen.
• Branches. The activity of the branches has once again been very disappointing. The active branches at present are Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Western Cape. For some reason the other branches are not operating and there has been nobody willing to take up the reins and put activities together for members. This is a concern to the Institution as we should be offering our members some activity to assist with CPD point accumulation.
  I attended the ECSA President’s Forum meeting and Vaughan Townsend the AMRE AGM on my behalf.
• Various members have attended portfolio meetings as noted under the section Council Representatives in this report, throughout the year. Thank you for your continued support and efforts
• Eight members’ names have been put forward to ECSA as nominations to serve on committees there. No result has been forthcoming as yet.
• A position paper on the final proposal towards a new model for the Certificated Engineer has been submitted by ECSA on 20 November 2009. We are awaiting the outcome from the relevant stakeholders

The financial status of ICMEESA has remained positive and is going from strength to strength. The audited and certified annual financial report, which is included in this annual report, shows that the financial expenditure is well controlled and a concerted effort has again gone into the recovery of subscriptions. Well done to Robbie Holmwood and Fiona Revolta on controlling the finances so well.

The annual year end function was held on the 24th October 2009 at the Boston BBQ, situated in the Gold Reef City Casino in Johannesburg where a buffet lunch was enjoyed by all who attended.

Thank you to Fiona and those members of EXCO who have supported me during my year as President and for those who have attended functions on my behalf. It has been an honour and a pleasure for me to serve this esteemed Institution as President.

Congratulations to the newly elected Council and EXCO as well as the President for 2010, Obed Letsholo, and Vice Presidents who are making themselves available for the coming year. Your efforts and contributions do not pass unnoticed.

Finally, thank you to all our members. We always look forward to communicating with you and I would like to encourage Improved communication as that is one of the problems other Institutions l are also experiencing.
May the Institution continue to represent its members in the best way possible.
 

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen
 

Presidential Address: Engineers in a Developing Country.

• Hopes for a successful South African democracy depend on the production of competent professionals.
• Professionals who have a globally competitive:
  • Knowledge
  • Skills
  • Prepared to stay in the country
• Expansion in the country of billions on infrastructure for FIFA world cup 2010 upgrade of power stations
  • Airports
  • Harbour upgrade
  • In some of these projects the desired quality is not obtained due to the lack of expertise which has been lost over time.
  • The boom was here and recession took over in 2008. How well can we recover?

There has been a proliferation of projects which are ongoing in spite of us facing a serious shortage of professionals. In the years gone by, the professionals left for greener pastures, or, could not work in the ANC lead government. The recession has had some constraints on the system, where companies had to restructure their operations to survive. In the process, individual jobs are affected and the people state of mind changes. Engineers leave the industry (factory and mining) and join the financial sector. To make matters worse, in 2008, difficulty to properly expedite projects was highlighted by the exercise done by Renette du Toit and Joan Roodt. Their research revealed that SA has 473 engineers per million citizens, while Japan, when they were hosting the 2002 world cup, had 3306 engineers to a million citizens. Similar comparisons with other developing countries, such as Chile and Malaysia have respectively, 1460 and 1843 engineers per million citizens.

Labour Market
The lack of engineering capacity hampers SA development. For the past five years there has been a decline in the labour market, especially engineering.
Some of the drivers impacting on the labour market are things like:

• Reduction in agriculture and mining sectors on the GDP
• Reduction in demand for agricultural and mining engineers and an increase in demand on the engineers with manufacturing and services related technologies.
• The other factor that distorts the statistic is the tendency for engineers to leave direct employment in the industry and become self employed contractors or consultants, with many of these emigrating.
• The other issue is the fact that the final year national diploma students, that do not hold bursaries from companies have extreme difficulty in finding the opportunity to obtain their necessary experiential training and could not graduate.

Employment of Engineering Professionals
A study was conducted in 2005 and the results from this show how the growth have been in the different sectors as shown below. (See Graphic)
The statistics are a clear indication that we are short of engineers in practice, or our growth is very low. But we do have engineers in the finance sector. It then becomes a controversial topic as to the genuine shortage of engineering skills. The industry is growing, the practicing engineers are ageing, and with the entire projects boom, the skills resources are critical. So what is our replacement strategy, or, succession planning? Some of the major players in the industry, mining and factories, have reduced or stopped training which has exacerbated the difficulty for academically qualified students to be taken and given experiential training.
What could be done to harness the knowledge out there from retired engineers? I know that ECSA and SAIEE are helping local governments awarding bursaries for technicians. It is a challenge for all of us and as the Certificated Engineers we have to contribute through our bursary fund.

Engineering professionals working as managers
In the Mail & Guardian (April 2008), Professor E Smit (as Director of University of Stellenbosch) was quoted “It is often found that engineering professionals become managers. The opportunities to occupy leadership positions”. The engineers are more suited than others to adapt to the highly pressurised environment of banks. The growth of engineering professionals in finance is 18.71%.

Why would engineers leave the industry? Combination of factors to name a few:-

• Adaptability of engineering skills;
• Insufficient incentives;
• Lack of opportunities;
• Insufficient career path;
• Under utilization of engineers could contribute to frustration in a technical environment.

Conclusion
I think it depends on us as the institution to be involved in bridging the gap by doing these:-

• Bursary scheme;
• Mentorship;
• Experiential training;

Employers can also be involved by:-

• Dual career path;
• Flexibility mainly to allow for women;
• Recruitment of retired engineering professionals;
• Creation of an employer brand (attract human capital, unique human resource value proposition – differentiation)
• Adoption of a talent management approach. Harry Truman (USA President, 1884-1972) said, “Progress occurs when Courageous Skilful Leaders seize the Opportunity to Change things for the better”.

The Institute of Certificated Mechanical and Electrical Engineers needs to take the lead, be courageous and seize this opportunity and have an influence in the South African school’s curriculum and tertiary institutions.

Thank you 
Obed Letsholo
 

Financial Report for 2009

With reference to the operational expenditure of ICMEESA, in relation to subscription income, once again we ended the year with a small surplus. With subscription income the only source of income, it was the usual diligence with which the members pay their dues that enable us to remain financially stable. Sincere thanks to all our members for their positive response. We receive sixty percent of the annual subscription within the first quarter of the year, which is testimony to the positive response we receive to the January invoices.

The normal ten percent of subscriptions were again paid to branches, pro-rata to the membership subscription payments from members belonging to that specific branch. There was additional unplanned expenditure incurred due to the relocation of our offices. This was mostly for office furniture. With the sound financial position it enabled Council to limit the annual subscription increases to acceptable limits. A contributing factor to our healthy finances is the steady membership growth that we have experienced over the past few years. With close to one hundred new members for 2009, subscription income was substantially more than budget. I trust that we can continue this trend.

The Education Fund is still strong with income from the WP Jones Trust Fund exceeding our bursary expenditure for 2009. The existing education fund investment also earns substantial interest over the year. A concerted effort needs to be made to find more worthy bursary candidates so that these surplus finds can be constructively utilised.

Other investments also grew from interest earnings.

Honorary Treasurer.
R A Holmwood.

At the November Council meeting it was agreed that subscription increases will be restricted to an 8% increase. The subscription fees for 2010, including VAT, will be as follows:

• Senior R604.00
• Member R604.00
• Associate R604.00
• Student R453.00
• Patron R1,209.00
• Retired <20 R302.00
• Retired >20 R151.00
   

Engineering Council (ECSA)

The 2005-2009 term of office of the Council of ECSA ended on 25 August 2009 and on the same day the 2009-2013 Council was constituted by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon Geoff Doidge, MP. Mr Jack Cunnington. President of ICMEESA was appointed by the Minister to represent Professional Certificated Engineers on the new Council. Other Members of Council who are also Professional Certificated Engineers are: BP O’Connor and CM Norden. On 1 October 2009 Dr Oswald Franks was appointed as CEO of ECSA. Dr Franks is a certificated engineer. Prof Hanrahan, who had acted as CEO will continue to be involved in the design of the new qualification and registration routes for Professional Certificated Engineers. Prof Hanrahan received the Presidents Award 2009, a highest Prestige Award of the SA Institute of Electrical Engineers. All Committees of ECSA Council will be reconstituted following the appointment of the Council for the new term of office. The Institution has submitted nominations for members of the Institution to serve on the Registration Committee: Professional Certificated Engineers, Engineering Program Accreditation Committee and The Technology Programme Accreditation Committee.
Registration of Professional and Candidate Certificated Engineers

The number of new registrations has increased significantly.


 

SAASTA

Department of Labour (DoL)

The Minister of Labour published a new set of ELECTRICAL INSTALLATION REGULATIONS on 6 March 2009. The following are important changes:

• The introduction of Approved Inspection Authorities for electrical installations (AIA),
• The CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE which is a new document which must be accompanied with a TEST REPORT (old CoC in SANS 10142-1).
• Where the voltage exceeds 1 kV, a person registered in a professional category with ECSA or other described competent person shall approve the design of the MV part of the installation,
• Where more than five users are connected to one point of supply, an AIA, described competent person or person registered in a professional category with ECSA, shall ensure compliance from commencement to commissioning of the electrical installation.
• Proof of compliance with the prescribed standards in SANS 10142-1 of all components used in an installation by marking on the components or by certification by the manufacturer.

Department of Minerals and Energy (DME)

Regulations continue to be promulgated under the Mine Health and Safety Act and, simultaneously, regulations that were in effect under the Minerals Act (and in force in terms of Schedule 4 of the Mine Health and Safety Act) are being repealed as they become obsolete. 

The Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate continues to strive towards improvement of conditions and practices at mines and thereby reduce the exposure of mine employees to acceptable levels of risk to their health and safety. The mining industry was subsequently subjected to a national audit, the results of which were released early in 2009. The results on their own do not reveal any earth shattering reasons or solutions to the perceived high fatality rate in the mining industry. The Inspectorate in their pursuit of zero harm also issued numerous Section 54 and 55 notices stopping parts of mines and in some cased complete mines for periods of up to 7 days.

Certificate of Competency exams did not provide exiting results in that the pass rate for both plant knowledge as well as legal knowledge remains far below expectation. This is a major concern to industry as candidates are receiving far more attention and focused training with no real improvement. Industry and members of ICMEESA are meeting with representatives of the DME on an ongoing basis an attempt to understand the reasons for the poor results.
The DME is committed to the continuous improvement of the quality of life for mine employees. This is only possible with the ongoing co-operation and participation of all persons associated with the mining industry.

Membership

There has been an encouraging ongoing increase in applications for membership in 2009 ranging from students to certificated engineers with 25 years experience. 113 new members were approved during the year. New applications for student members and members were in the majority. The Committee meets prior to Council and Executive meetings to consider applications and make the appropriate recommendations.
 

New members 2009:

Student Member = 50
Member = 25
Senior Members = 3
Associate member = 17
Retired members = 4
Resignations = 9
Deceased = 5


 

Obituary. Members deceased in 2009 
JD Auret
FE Bennetto
IJ Gibbons
RE Hunter
MW Jansen van Rensburg
GH Jillings
PH Robberts
TM Rowland
G Armstrong
 

Editorial

1. The quarterly newsletter “ICMEESA NEWS”.
2. The quarterly Western Cape Branch produced “Engineering Bulletin”.
3. Distribution of magazines such as Vector.
4. The web site www.icmeesa.com

Although intended to be more interactive in nature, member contributions rarely occur. There is occasional feedback from members on articles which is of a positive tone. The introduction of an interactive blogging site will hopefully stimulate more interactive participation.