Page 46 - Annual Report 2016-2017

REPORT OF THE MALTESE FEANI NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Maltese Chamber of Engineers
Year of Adhesion : 1978
Declared engineers: 700
Number of EUR INGs: 197
Member associations: There are 5 Member Associations in Malta, among which the Chamber of Engineers, the Engineering Board or the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta.
Professional Centre - Sliema Road - GZIRA GZR 1633, Malta Tel: +356 2133 4858 - Fax: +356 2134 7118 info@coe.org.mt
www.coe.org.mt
Activities and Issues
To practice the profession of engineer in Malta, one requires to have an Engineering Warrant (licence) issued by the State under the Engineering Profession Act. An Engineering Board vets applications for the warrant and is also responsible for other matters related to the profession. It is pertinent to point out that this law does not apply to civil engineers who fall under another law. The Engineering Profession Act is being revised to ensure that Malta is in line with the relevant EU Directives. The Chamber has been involved in the revision of this law and has suggested improvements.
Up to now, the only Maltese academic quali cation accepted by the Engineering Board for the granting of the warrant is the BEng degree of 240 ECTS of the University of Malta. There has been pressure recently to allow graduates from the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST), which is basically a vocational institution, to obtain the warrant. Since there are doubts whether the degrees awarded by MCAST are of the right level, the Engineering Board has commissioned ASIIN to carry out an exercise to review the degrees of the University of Malta and MCAST. The Chamber welcomed this initiative and collaborated fully in the exercise.
The Chamber is pushing hard to ensure the highest ethical standards among engineers. An Ethics sub-committee has revised the current code to make it more reader friendly without devaluing any of the principles of the current code, and indeed adding new ones against discrimination. The new Code of Ethics has been accepted by the Minister responsible for the profession and is now in force.
Occupational Health and Safety as well as the General Safety of the public is another concern on which the Chamber is actively working. In particular it is resisting the attempts of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority of Malta to replace the certi cation by engineers by what are being called competent persons, whose quali cations, compe- tence and method of appointment is left to the discretion of the employer who is also being allowed to certify his own equipment.
25th Annual Engineering Conference
The Chamber has decided to give an European avour to its annual Engineering Conference on 25 May 2017, given that Malta was holding the EU presidency. It set “Core values for Engineers in Europe – The Way Forward” as the theme for the conference and invited speakers from FEANI and the EU Commission. Mr. Dirk Bochar, FEANI Secretary General, spoke