The participants at the recent conference for engineers, architects and planners in Panbang, Zhemgang expressed the need to address the issue of ghost engineer in the construction sector. The practice of ghost engineer hampers quality infrastructure and hinders timely completion of contract works according to the officials.
Ghost engineer in the construction sector is when the requirement of engineers is achieved only in papers without engineers on the actual ground. An engineer’s certificates and curriculum vitae are rented out for a specific time period and he earns money without visiting the sites. Most ghost engineers are produced by medium and large contractors. The participants shared that this practice is against the conference’s theme of “professional accountability for quality infrastructure” and that it should be strictly monitored.
“Sometimes in the construction industry, we are asked by the government to recruit 4-5 engineers even in small construction works. But what our contractors do is just hire the certificates of the engineers during the tender and there will be no engineers at the site. In some cases, the actual person would be out of the country or some even dead. But the contractors use their certificates because we have a system that gives more score to those contractors who have senior engineers. So, it is easy to get work by using their certificates,” said Tshering Yonten, the General Secretary of the Construction Association of Bhutan (CAB).
CAB proposed that concerned authorities carry out stringent inspection and physical verification of engineers while awarding the contract works. CAB said the practice needs to be removed as it affects those contractors who are interested in carrying out quality works.
However, the Department of Road’s (DOR) Director-General Tenzin, said that while the concept of ghost engineer is widely used in the country, its existence may not be as true as stated. He also added that experienced engineers leaving the profession and increasing number of contractors in the country are some of the factors giving rise to the practice of ghost engineer.
“Sometimes it is true but it is not true most of the time. When contractors do not deploy engineers at the site, they either have to pay compensation for not deploying the required manpower to do the works or they should be fined,” said the DoR’s Director-General Tenzin.
Meanwhile, the ministry of works and human settlement plans to register all the engineers in the country by June this year to address the issue of ghost engineers.
Pema Samdrup
