The curse of African engineers

Dear Editor,

TO think that in Africa we have people who call themselves engineers, it somehow cringes our good imagination. It even clots our minds why we even produce them from our universities. I am asking because looking around, many of us will agree that their contribution to the world of technology is fearfully exquisite to say the least.

Sadly, it is this same technology that has pushed many countries, especially in the West forward in terms of their socio-economic development.

Africa sadly has continued to lag way behind because it lacks the badly needed technology to turn its vast resources lying untapped into exportable products and its engineers are to blame. Consequently Africa's national resources everyday find their way to the same West to make products it exports to Africa at a high cost.

This scenario is probably more shocking in Zambia than it may be in countries like South Africa where there is still a formidable and dependable population of white engineers doing the needful.

It seems our engineers acquire these paper qualifications merely to earn hefty salaries because how else can we describe them? Measly perhaps?

Take the issue of our roads and bridges in Zambia which keep being washed away by rains year in year out. Yet Zambia is a net exporter of cement and why can't our road and chemical engineers come together to work out new materials using cement to build long lasting roads and bridges.

This dependency on black tar roads discovered by an Irish engineer, MacAdams who I hear died somewhere in 1837 is quite daunting. Zambia produces bumper maize harvests, weather permitting, each year, but we still import Bokomo cornflakes because our engineers have failed to design and produce machinery to make cornflakes locally.

You may not know it but even the great US has grown its strong economy through SMEs which it adequately support in terms of technology because it is its engine of the economy.

India which is reported to have the strongest and biggest cottage industry in the world has been in the bag because of support from its engineers.

It further angers me to see the amount of mangoes going to waste every year at Mtenguleni in Chipata and Mongu where Zambia could produce abundant pure rich mango juice for both local and export markets if given locally designed kits.

The examples are many and the bucks squarely stops at our Engineering Institute of Zambia (EIZ) to come out of its cocoon and begin to make a mark on Zambian's development efforts through the provision of ideal technology, not book theories.

I strongly believe time is now for Zambian engineers to send a trial balloon and who knows they may in return surprise Zambians with a pippin.