SLIE/PERC in their ongoing engagements with various heads of institutions, companies, and MDAs on the new SLIE/PERC Continuous Professional Development (CPD) framework, has on Wednesday, 8th September, 2021, met with the management of the Energy Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC), at their head office, Kingtom. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce to the management of EGTC, the new SLIE/PERC CPD framework and conduct a training needs survey for their engineering employees. In attendance were, Ing Louise Chaytor, SLIE/PERC CPD lead, Thomas Michael Salankole and Abdul Kaadiru Kallon, Graduate Engineer Volunteers SLIE,Ing. Milton Gegbai, Director General, Ing Munda Lewis, Deputy Director General, Ing. Harold Reider, Thermal Generation Manager, and Ing. Sinneh A.S. Koroma, Hydropower Generation Manager, EGTC. Ing Chaytor, in her opening statement said, SLIE/PERC is engaging with institutions to promote Continuous Professional Development to enable engineers to keep up to date with the latest technology, improve their skills, and create a well-rounded engineer. It is good for engineers to have technical knowledge and skills, but other qualities like interpersonal skills, sustainability, health & safety, independent judgement, commercial ability, and presentation skills are all very essential for engineers to function effectively in the business environment. The SLIE/PERC will be offering a range of courses for engineers and wants to partner with EGTC which has a training center for engineering employees, to train young graduates from the university, and to create a skilled workforce. She encouraged EGTC to incorporate this CPD framework into their performance appraisal system. She commended the company for ensuring its engineers were registered with PERC. The process has become more lenient. The institution is encouraging membership to get everyone onboard. She shared that when she joined PERC, she had to submit a paper to PERC for review, and was interviewed by council before being admitted as a corporate member. She further explained that SLIE/PERC is working on changing the narrative and perception of people about SLIE/PERC by having the CPD in place. There are future plans to improve standards of membership to the point of certifying Incorporated Engineer (IENG) and Chartered Engineer (CENG). Ing Koroma said the new CPD framework is a brilliant idea, as they have been looking for such initiatives for a long time now, especially when compared to other professions like having Chartered Accountants with conditions of service one cannot meddle with. He made reference to Ghana having a standard for all engineering work because their Institution of Engineers monitors and regulates all engineering activities in the country. Therefore, he is happy about and supports the CPD framework presented by SLIE/PERC. Ing Lewis, who also welcomed the idea of CPD, wanted to know more details of this framework. Ing Chaytor responded to him by presenting a copy of the CPD Booklet, which explains the framework in details.

Presenting the CPD Booklet to the Director General EGTC, Ing. Gegba

The Director General EGTC, Ing. Gegbai in his opening statement said that on behalf of all management and staff of EGTC, he thanked SLIE for the wonderful initiative and expressed happiness now that the institution is getting closer to technical institutions especially the Energy sector and called it a laudable venture. The core operation of the energy sector, EDSA and EGTC to be specific is engineering and power engineering. Different types of engineering is practiced in this sector with reference to the electricity chains cycle, ranging from Generation, Transmission Systems, and Distribution Systems. When National Power Authority (NPA) was unbundled, EGTC took on the mandate to operate and maintain the generators, as well as transmission systems, he continued. CPD is one of the strategies to adopt for the company to survive. Some courses aid management in making strategic decisions. EGTC operates as a company based on a business plan developed after the unbundling, and one of the objectives of this plan is capacity building. He further mentioned that in 2019, there was a twinning program with Ghanaians. A whole training plan was developed and EGTC engineers benefited from the training, specifically Hydroelectric power and transmission systems training. The baseline assessment was done by OPI in UK, in which EGTC engineers excelled. Also, in 2020, EGTC ran a training program on Strategic Leadership and Management for all executive managers. He noted that though as a company they are not experts, yet they have managed the system judiciously with the little knowledge they have and successfully provided services. The Director General, suggested SLIE/PERC submit their training package, so that EGTC can review, adopt and incorporate it into their training plan for the year. EGTC are challenged financially, as a government entity. Nevertheless they try to ensure they pay for their engineers’ professional license fees annually. He raised some other concerns about the company’s sustainability which Ing. Chaytor said will be reported to Council. The DG also mentioned that they have executive managers with over 20 years of experience who can assist in offering training to professional engineers if required. The SLIE team finally presented a copy of the CPD booklet to the management.