The Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) has entered a strategic collaboration with the City of Tshwane, marked by the signing of a memorandum of agreement (MoA) at the Tshwane Leadership and Management Academy.

The partnership aims at enhancing municipal engineering services and developing a resilient, future-ready engineering workforce.

ECSA states that the agreement reflects a shared vision to strengthen capacity building efforts, promote professional development and ensure ethical, competent engineering practices across the municipality, aligned with its mandate under the Engineering Profession Act.

“The issue of engineering skills capacity continues to challenge the sector. Even where skills exist, we see a loss in the pipeline, with practitioners seeking better opportunities abroad,” said ECSA CEO Dr Bridget Ssamula, speaking at the official MoA signing.

“Through this partnership, we envision Tshwane becoming the first city certified as a municipal engineering training academy recognised by the Council. This could serve as a national benchmark for engineering excellence and sustainable urban development, engineering better cities for the future,” she continued.

This agreement will see ECSA supporting the City of Tshwane by providing guidance on the professional registration of engineering practitioners employed by the City; offering advisory support on engineering compliance and capacity planning; enhancing awareness of ECSA’s Codes of Conduct and regulatory requirements; and supporting the development and implementation of internal engineering policies aligned with national standards.

ECSA notes that the partnership also strengthens its stakeholder education drive on the Identification of Engineering Work (IDoEW), which was gazetted in 2021. The IDoEW stipulates that engineering work should be undertaken by registered professionals.

The IDoEW is not about hierarchies between registration categories, but about safeguarding the integrity of engineering work across disciplines and categories, ECSA emphasises.

“This collaboration also supports government’s broader objective to professionalise the public sector and secure a sustainable pipeline of skilled engineers.

“Our focus must now shift to identifying who needs to register and when in their professional journey. Registration must be seen as a critical step for those conducting engineering work,” said Ssamula.

Despite continued advocacy, ECSA has noted that only 26% of potential engineering candidates pursue registration, posing a challenge to quality assurance in the profession.

It states that this agreement, therefore, reinforces both institutions’ commitment to improved service delivery, infrastructure development and the professionalisation of engineering in the public sector.

“ECSA and the City of Tshwane look forward to a collaborative journey that uplifts engineering excellence and drives sustainable development for all residents,” says ECSA.