Engineering Council of South Africa Forges a Strategic Partnership with the City of Tshwane to Enhance Municipal Engineering Services

The Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) has officially entered into a strategic collaboration with the City of Tshwane, marked by the commencement of the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) at the Tshwane Leadership and Management Academy aimed at enhancing municipal engineering services and building a resilient, future ready engineering workforce.

This agreement reflects a shared vision to strengthen capacity building efforts, promote professional development, and ensure ethical, competent engineering practices across the municipality, aligned with ECSA’s mandate under the Engineering Profession Act (Act No. 46 of 2000).

“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 Dr Bridget Ssamula, CEO of ECSA, speaking at the official MoA commencement. 

She added, “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.”

This partnership involves ECSA supporting the City of Tshwane through: 

• Providing guidance for the professional registration of engineering practitioners employed by the City;
• Providing advisory support on engineering compliance and capacity planning;
• Enhancing institutional knowledge of ECSA’s Codes of Conduct and regulatory requirements; and
• Supporting the development and implementation of internal engineering policies aligned with national standards.

The partnership also strengthens ECSA’s stakeholder education drive on the Identification of Engineering Work (IDoEW), gazetted in 2021, which says that engineering work should be designated for registered professionals. The IDoEW is not about ranking registration categories,but about safeguarding the integrity of engineering work across disciplines and categories.

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

“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,” concluded Ssamula. 

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

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.