‘Reaping benefits from
CPEC depends on our engineers’ “Essa”
President of the Association of Consulting Engineers Pakistan (ACEP) Siddiq Essa is in no mood to waste time on issues which he believes cannot be resolved.
Instead, he wants to focus on strengthening the association on professional lines.
This is something he told Engineering Review in plain words. What we seriously require is brotherhood, he said. There are many issues which even the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) cannot resolve and then how can we expect ACEP to do it, he asked.
Engineer Essa talked about the tampering that has become a norm in the society where the clients play with the consultants because of their lack of professionalism. But still, there are many who have learnedto pay appropriately that adds up to the worth of their projects, he says.
But apart from local projects and their clients, who will resolve the issues rising after the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)?
“It has deeper links in the past,” he recalls. He referred to Tarbella Dam Project and Pakistan Steel Mills as the projects which according to him brought dividends for Pakistani engineers who learned a lot from them.
Senior engineers in Pakistan be they in WAPDA or elsewhere can designs dams and execute huge projects because of the experience they got from foreigners due to such projects. “They brought jobs and technical skills”, he said.
Does CPEC bring the same? It depends who takes decisions and signs for Pakistan, he replied. We must safeguard our national interestat all costs as the benefit usually goes to those who bring money.
CPEC would create many projects like other huge projects in Pakistan in the past. It will open new avenues and opportunities which our engineer should avail in Pakistan.
Alongwith these issues, Engineer Essa is set at strengthening ACEP which he says has presently 110 members and they need to increase the number of members. But it seems a gigantic task as Mr. Essa is heard as even receiving subscription fees from the members is no easy job. They don’t even give fees without “Danda” (force), he says.
But still, Engineer Siddiq Essa has many plans which he wants to execute. One is imparting technical trainings so that the people at project sites should be strong technically. “We need to arrange such training. We may request Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) to make two-year training mandatory for license holders”, he suggested adding they would also talk to NED University as well.
Engineer Essa is also the vice president of ACIP and he wants to use it too for technical trainings in Pakistan.
When asked if Pakistani consulting companies and engineers are still exporting their services abroad, he replied they do. The Arab countries have gone too ahead and usually engage European and American consultants for their projects. However, African countries and some others in Asia including Malaysia still hire Pakistani engineering companies and services.
Engineer Essa’s company has many good projects on its credit.At present, his work has slowed down as the apex court of Pakistan has put on hold the construction of high rise buildings in Karachi. He revealed that the people were opting for other provinces after the ban.
