By CHARITY MOONGA
  –

A ZAMBIAN engineer George Sitali has ascended to the chairmanship of the Group
of African Member Associations (GAMA) of the International Federation of
Consulting Engineers (FIDIC).
Mr Sitali was installed as chairperson of GAMA, having been
vice-chairperson for the last two years as well as past chairperson
of the Association of Consulting Engineers of Zambia (ACEZ). He is
currently Engineering Institution of Zambia (EIZ) vice-president-Policy and Administration.
At the annual conference held in Maputo Mozambique from 23rd to26th
March 2014, Mr Sitali said African governments must see them as
necessary strategic partners who were well-equipped and trusted to
provide what is necessary for countries’ national development.
In his maiden speech, Mr Sitali called on African Governments to recognise the role of engineers while the engineers should make
their services visible and available for national development.
“Every country that has developed has done so with the full
participation of engineers,” he said.
He also called for enhanced development of young professionals in all
member associations to ensure competent succession and continuous
development of the engineering consultancy on the continent of Africa.
“There is also need for local capacity building to assure all those
who used consulting services that consultants were competent and
improving continuously.
“The consultant engineers in Africa are able to compete favourably with
even those from advanced economies. Capacity building is
necessary to maintain this position,” Mr Sitali said.
He called for integrity among engineers to ensure that they
remained right, thought right and did things right.
“We must have a proper character and
may this character of right people be uniform in all our GAMAs,” he
said.
He added that engineeers must work together and strategically plan and
manageg GAMA and Member Associations so that their programmes were
assured of qualitative achievement.
“Let us aim at achieving great goals, let us set them, achieve them
and do so appropriately. We must be seen and known as those who want
to deliver services effectively,” he said.
The FIDIC GAMA Annual Conference is the biggest networking event for
the consulting industry in Africa.
The Zambian delegation to the meeting included GAMA past chairperson Levi Zulu, past ACEZ chairperson Renatus Mushinge, Misheck Yamikani Daka, current ACEZ chairperson Patrick
Kampengele, ACEZ Immediate past chairperson and Board chairperson of
the National Council for Construction Abel Ngandu and others.