SYNOPSIS

The Registration of Engineers Act 1967 is an Act of Parliament enacted to regulate engineers and the engineering profession. First passed by Parliament in 1967, it came into force in 1972 and to date has been amended six times with the latest amendments passed by the Dewan Rakyat on 27th November 2014 and the Dewan Negara on 17th December 2014. After obtaining the Royal Assent, the amendments were gazetted on 24th February 2015. The Minister of Works is likely to enforce the new amendments by the second half of 2015.

These amendments were mainly driven by Malaysia’s commitments in International Trade wherein under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services timeline, the last date for liberalisation for Business and Professional Services is 2015. In line with these commitments and with GATS requirements, the Engineering Consultancy industry will be opened to non-engineers and foreigners. As a safeguard measure to protect public interest, a new concept of two-tier registration has been introduced with the 1st tier being the Professional engineer and a new 2nd tier of the Professional engineer with practising certificate. Only a Professional engineer with a practising certificate in force will be allowed to be in practice.

This talk will cover the rationale behind the amendments to the Registration of Engineers Act and its purpose. It will highlight the major amendments and its implications to the engineer and the engineering consultancy practices.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

YBhg Dato’ Paduka (Dr) Ir. Hj Keizrul Abdullah is a Past President of IEM. As a member of the Engineers Act Committee of the Board of Engineers Malaysia, he has been involved in the recent amendments to the Registration of Engineers Act 1967 which is likely to come into force later this year. He is also a member of the BEM team conducting a nationwide roadshow on the new amendments to the Engineers Act. He chairs the BEM Sub Committee working on updating the Registration of Engineers Regulations to be in line with the recent amendments to the Act.