250 New engineers inducted into IET-GH
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, Ghana (IET-GH) has inducted 250 engineering practitioners into its fold with a charge on them to uphold integrity.
The President of the IET-GH, Henry Kwadwo Boateng, who made the call at the induction ceremony in Accra yesterday, said, “As you take your professional oath today, remember that your integrity must never be for sale.”
“Hold yourselves in high esteem. Refuse to compromise your principles. Let your name and your work be synonymous with quality, honesty and service to humanity,” he emphasised.
New members
The new members took the engineering oath administered by the President of the IET-GH.
Mr Boateng said the country did not need more engineers on paper and that it needed practitioners of conscience - engineers who would design with integrity, build with excellence, and serve with patriotism.
That, he said, was the only way the engineering profession would remain respected and the nation would progress.
“Today, we are not only celebrating the entry of brilliant young professionals into the noble family of engineering, but we are also reflecting on the sacred values that must guide our practice, integrity and excellence.
“Engineering is not just about equations, machines and infrastructure. It is about people’s lives.
Every decision we take, every project we touch, and every system we design has a direct bearing on the well-being of society,” he said.
Excellence
Mr Boateng said that was why the theme of the event, “Professional Integrity and Excellence: The Hallmark of the Modern Engineering Professional”, was both timely and crucial.
The country, he said, was bleeding from wastage and negligence, and often, engineers were not innocent bystanders.
For instance, he said at a recent national engagement, President John Mahama revealed that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) lost about 42% of its power, with part of that loss coming from theft, illegal bypasses, and direct connections.
“Who enables such acts? It is sometimes the very professionals who have sworn to protect the integrity of the system. How do we do this to ourselves and to the very public we serve?
“The story does not end there. A water treatment plant in the Central Region had to shut down because of pollution at its source in the Eastern Region, leaving about 10 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies without clean water,” he said.
Stopgap
Mr Boateng said the only stopgap solution was to drill boreholes and asked: “Why should millions of people suffer for the greed and recklessness of a few?
And how fair is it to ask citizens in the Volta Region, who have protected their forests and water bodies, to pay higher bills just to cover the cost of irresponsibility elsewhere?”
The country’s national audit reports, he said, also revealed hundreds of completed projects lying unused, and thousands abandoned to the mercy of time and weather.
“These are resources paid for by the taxpayer's money that could have built schools, hospitals and industries. Instead, they stand as silent monuments of waste,” he said, urging the inductees to ensure that holding their integrity was their call to action.
In an address, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Infrastructure and Investment Fund (GIFF), Bennett Akantoa, said integrity was the cornerstone of the profession and that it was the invisible force that “guides us when no one is watching”.
That, he said, meant refusing to cut corners, resisting the temptation of expediency and standing firm under pressure to compromise.
“The collapse of bridges, the failure of a building, the malfunction of a system are not merely engineering failures, they are failures of integrity,” he emphasised.
