SAICE BEMOANS THE EXODUS OF ENGINEERS FROM SA

The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) has called
for urgent intervention by government to attract engineers who have been
emigrating at an alarming rate back to South Africa.

Statistics from the Department of Home Affairs in 2017 showed that eight
South African professionals left for every skilled foreigner who entered the
country. That year saw 120 000 people with professional qualifications leave –
about 7% of the total number of professionals employed in South Africa at the
time.

Saice says this trend is felt most acutely in the infrastructure sector.

Saice, being one of the biggest professional voluntary associations in
the country with 12 000 members, has lost 1.73% of its members to emigration
over the last three years.

The association notes that the majority of its members who have left the
country were between 30 and 60 years old and cited seeking greener pastures and
opportunities.

“The serious shortage of technically qualified managers in all three
spheres of government is of great concern. It appears the weakness in
government structures is the lack of knowledge on how to identify projects and
how to effectively spend the allocated money.

“This is evident from the lack of structures, processes, systems as well
as suitably qualified and experienced individuals in government to manage
infrastructure spend. It is necessary to urgently re-install appropriately
qualified and professionally registered technical people back into the system
to plan, identify, procure and manage large-spend engineering projects to
unlock the economy,” Saice points out.

The institute conducted a survey among 1 367 of its members, in which
932, or 68%, of the surveyed engineering professionals indicated a willingness
to work in the public sector.

However, Saice says there are specific issues that prevent engineering
professionals from joining the public sector.

These include an over-politicisation of infrastructure departments; the
diminished decision-making roles of technocrats; the lack of systems, processes
and structures for efficient administration; a lack of training, development
and career paths; and unwarranted interference of human resources and finance
divisions in the work of infrastructure engineering professionals.

“While government continually speaks of its commitment to the National
Development Plan, the professionalisation of the public sector and placing
emphasis on job creation and infrastructure development, there has been
virtually no positive outcome of this commitment. 

“The infrastructure sector remains in a slump, with consulting firms
retrenching technical staff and even shutting down due to a lack of work,
forcing qualified professionals into unemployment and seeking employment in
foreign [countries], taking their skills with them,” the association
highlights.

Saice acting CEO Steven Kaplan says the brain drain
happening in industry is devastating.

“It costs the country a lot of money and resources to produce
world-class engineers, to lose them because they cannot find work, in a country
where they are needed the most, is a travesty.”

Saice has been raising these concerns on behalf of its members for years and continues to offer assistance to government to alleviate these and many more technical capacity related challenges. https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/saice-bemoans-the-exodus-of-engineers-from-south-africa-2019-07-09/rep_id:4136