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Politicisation of engineers syndicate hinders its progress, some members say

By Dana Al Emam - Mar 01,2017 - Last updated at Mar 01,2017

AMMAN — Involving political leanings in professional work has hindered the Jordan Engineers Association’s (JEA) progress and has led to the neglect of members’ interests, according to a group of “unpoliticised” engineers.

The activists, who identified themselves as part of a professional current at the JEA seeking to maintain professionalism in the syndicate, said advancing the profession entails the inclusion of engineers from across the political spectrum, as well as politically-independent ones.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion held earlier this week at the Jordan Press Foundation, they agreed on the need to amend the association’s law to allow for further inclusion in representation.

Syndicate member Ahmad Samara called for amending the JEA Law to introduce open proportional lists when electing the association’s council, as current regulations entitle the list that wins 51 per cent of votes to take 100 per cent of the council’s seats.

Furthermore, Samara criticised the “inability of successive councils to reach out to all engineers”, despite the advancement in means of communications.

He added that the syndicate’s pension fund is based on three pillars — the fund’s administration, investment projects and engineers’ pension premiums. 

Samara charged that the syndicate’s council immediately jumped to the third component when trying to address the fund’s financial challenges. 

“Correct investment choices prevent the need to raise pension premiums,” he noted.

Raed Khatib, another association member, said problems in the pension fund started appearing in 1999, when the syndicate’s council increased pensions without increasing subscriptions “for election-related purposes”.

Furthermore, the council reduced the retirement age for men from 65 to 60, and for women from 60 to 55 years, a matter that has decreased fund revenues, according to Khatib.

By 2013, the fund’s actuarial deficit reached JD593 million, and by 2015 only some 77,000 subscribers out of the 137,000 were committed to paying their dues.

“We demand reviewing the fund’s assets, punishing the wrongdoers and studying how to regenerate income to the fund before reaching into engineers’ pockets to raise subscriptions,” Khatib said, citing different “documented” failures in investment projects that were not properly studied.

For his part, engineer Imad Dabbas called for advising students to enrol in universities on the labour market’s needs, adding that some entities that offer internship opportunities for fresh engineering graduates do not train them properly.

Also speaking at the roundtable, JEA member Suhair Abdulhadi said there are “high” unemployment rates among graduates of some engineering specialties, citing some 2,000 unemployed surveying engineering graduates. 

She called for coordinating with construction projects to hire these engineers in mega schemes.

Moreover, out of some 1,200 engineering firms, only around 400 offices are operating, Abdulhadi said. 

 

Meanwhile, syndicate member Mutaz Otain said only around 10 per cent of engineers take part in its elections and activities, adding that the JEA council needs to start investing in “safe” development projects that reduce poverty and unemployment rates across the country. 

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