PROFESSIONAL
QUALIFICATION - THE
ENGINEERING TEAM
Speech by YBhg Dato’ Sri Ir. Dr Roslan Bin Md Taha, President of BEM,
at the 9 th National Engineering & Technology Convention
on April 8, 2017
E
ngineering in Malaysia has its beginnings
dating back to the establishment of the Public
Works Department in 1872, which created
a great demand for technical staff to implement
Government projects which were mainly basic
infrastructure works such as roads and drains. In
fact, many workers were drawn among prisoners.
Many early engineers were not trained engineers.
Instead they were mainly technicians who rose
in rank to assume positions of responsibility to
implement major public works projects such
as the construction of public buildings and the
infrastructure for water and power supplies,
drainage and irrigation, roads and railways.
Post-independence nation-building resulted
in the implementation of large scale national
engineering projects at an even faster pace.
Indeed, Malaysia has been on this continual
spiral of economic development as it rose from an
agricultural to an industrial and currently to ICT-
based knowledge economy.
At each phase, the country has embarked on
the development of appropriate infrastructure and
technological projects that have led to increasing
specialisation of engineering disciplines.
Looking back, I must record words of
appreciation to the Engineering Team comprising
not of just the engineers, but also the key team
members of technical assistants, technicians and
craftsmen during the nation building period when
the British Administration left the country in the
60s. Taking cognisance of the need to build up the
infrastructure and utilities at a fast pace in order
to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for the
manufacturing sector since we could not just rely
on the agriculture sector, it was the Engineering
teams that rose up to the occasion.
Even as of today when the nation has moved
from the Agriculture, Industrial, and ICT sectors
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