‘Regulate project management profession to ensure compliance’

The Executive Secretary of the National Board for Professional and Technician Exams (NABPTEX), Mrs Sheila Naah-Boamah, has called for the regulation of the project management profession in the country.

That, she said, would bring about strict compliance with best practices in addition to licensing and code of ethics for practitioners.

"If we want to avoid collapsing of buildings, abandoned road projects, roads that last for only six months, judgement debts, fire disasters from faulty projects, flooding from wrongly situated constructions, then there is the need for us to regulate project management practice in the country," she said.

Mrs Naah-Boamah made the call in a speech read on her behalf by the Curriculum Development and Research Secretary of the NABPTEX, Mr John Jonathan Afetorgbor, at the 2019 Project Management Practitioners Annual Conference in Accra last Saturday.

The conference was on the theme: “Inspiring today's project management practitioners for tomorrow's challenges”.

Organised by the Institute of Project Management Practitioners (IPMP)-Ghana, the event brought together project management professionals in Ghana and Nigeria to deliberate on issues of the profession.

Mrs Naah-Boamah said project management was critical to the development of any nation and that the Ghana beyond aid agenda would not be realised without properly trained and certified project managers.

Better managed

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ablekuman South, Dr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, who is a distinguished member of the IPMP, said Ghana could be better managed and see significant progress if politicians and decision makers considered it as a project and applied the tenets of project management in the governance of the country.

"I wish to submit that integrating project management concepts into the decision-making process will help in solving our country's problems and in making informed decisions for the future," he remarked.

Dr Vanderpuije explained that the phenomenon of shoddy and abandoned projects bedevilling the country could be curtailed if all policy makers were to acquire some knowledge in project management, which included execution and funding.

Induction

Some 11 individuals were inducted into the IPMP as Distinguished Members - the highest category of membership, while 14 other individuals, who had completed the Foundation Programme, were also inducted as Full Members or Intermediate Practitioners of the organisation.

The President of the IPMP, Dr David Ackah, advised the inductees to go out and use their skills to solve societal problems.