Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn says adhering to safety and quality guidelines are among the ministry’s main concerns about engineers executing public works.
Benn made this disclosure in his remarks at the third annual Engineering Conference held at the Guyana International Conference Centre on Thursday.
The ministry hosts the session annually to review works conducted by local engineers, provide guidance and introduce them to new technologies, a report from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said.
Benn said the conference itself can be used to include critical presentations and an interactive session to enhance the skills of the new corps of engineers. He envisioned the session expanding to two days annually, featuring central presentations, with poster sessions, “where we have peer review of the work that we do, where we have public scrutiny, where we have open discussions and criticisms and criticisms of how do we do our work.”
“In the field of engineering, formal engineering, Guyana has a fairly young crop of engineers…and since we are still a young developing country, we are always under the scrutiny…we have to consider what we are building, what is our mission in developing our country with respect to building a new country that has come out of an experience of colonialism and imperialism,” he said.
The minister also outlined several areas of concerns concerning the building of public infrastructure including safety, efficiency, quality, planning and money.
“We have to continue to take vigorous steps with respect to ensuring safety in all the things we do and in relation with the national infrastructure building industry and particularly to point out where we have still problems in terms of the culture when we build,” he said. “We still see high buildings going up and there is no harness, no safety signs and so on,” he added.
The engineers were also cautioned that poor planning, “rush” jobs, uncertainty about specific technical and administrative roles inherent in the functions of each person responsible for the project will lead to a well-planned project falling into confusion and doubt. Regarding money and funding for the project, the engineers were reminded that they are charged with ensuring that the public gets value for money.
In his opening address, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds noted that over the years the calibre of engineers attached to the ministry has changed. He recalled that in the 1960s there was a cadre of experienced engineers which gradually decreased as the volume of skilled persons migrated.
However, he submitted that the time has now come for the ministry to adapt a new comprehensive policy that it will execute using its own engineers. Hinds proposed that this new policy cover the “recognition of the cost that the ministry would have to incur in being a prime place for training, accumulating experience, for testing and developing new experience.”
