A nine-member Governing Board of the Engineering Council has been inaugurated to provide strategic direction on engineering practice in Ghana.

Professor Mark Adom-Asamoah is the Acting Chairman of the Board, and the members include Mr Eric Otenkorang Ankrah, a Registered Engineering Technician, and Mr Philip Kwame Aheto, an Engineering Technologist.

The others are Reverend Sir Frederick Akwaboah, Professional Engineer, Mr Ebenezer Kwesi Haizel Esq, a Legal Practitioner, and Mr Eric Atta-Sonno, representative of the Ghana Institute of Surveyors.

Mr Francis Asenso Boakye, the Minister of Works and Housing, who administered the Oaths of Office and Secrecy, charged the members to ensure the highest standards of engineering practice in the country to protect lives and property.

He said the Council was mandated to regulate, license and certify engineers, technicians, technologists and craftsmen, hence it was incumbent on members to ensure that those professionals performed their duties in accordance to the required standards.

That would enable the public to have confidence in the Engineering profession.

Mr Boakye said the engineering profession played a crucial role in shaping and enhancing national development, especially in determining the integrity of housing, national infrastructure, transportation, and technological products, among other things.

He reminded the Council about the President's directive to conduct structural integrity test on all public buildings against earthquakes, and urged them to work in earnest towards fulfilling that responsibility.

He pledged the Ministry’s support to the Board in meeting its mandate.

Professor Adom-Asamoah, also the Provost of the College of Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, on behalf of the members, commended the President for the confidence reposed in them and pledged to meet the responsibilities entrusted.

He said the engineering profession played a critical role in every country's industrialisation drive and gave the assurance that the Board would ensure that only qualified engineers operated in the country.