The Ghana Consulting Engineers Association (GCEA) at its 2021 Annual General Meeting, held on the 9th December, 2021, elected Ing. Magnus Lincoln Quarshie as the 5th President of the Association.
Ing. Magnus Lincoln Quarshie takes over the leadership mantle of the GCEA from Ing. Albert Viala des Bordes, who has successfully run his term of office.
Ing. Quarshie comes to this position with a wealth of experience having been President of the Ghana Institution of Engineering in 2014/15. He was also the President of the West African Federation of Engineering Organizations from 2015-2017. He holds a B. Sc degree in Civil Engineering from KNUST, an M.Sc in Transportation and Road Engineering from TU/IHE Delft, The Netherlands and an MBA in Leadership and Sustainabilty from the University of Cumbria, UK. He is currently the CEO of Delin Consult, a civil Engineering and management consulting firm. He is a fellow of the GhIE.
The GCEA is the Association of Consulting Engineers in Ghana, charged with promoting and implementing the consulting engineering industries in Ghana on behalf of its member firms and to disseminate information and resources of interest to its members. The Association was incorporated on the 21st February, 1973. The objective and purpose of the Association, among other things, is to formulate policies and guideline upon which the practice of professional engineering service, participating in locally and internationally.
In his acceptance speech, Ing. Magnus Lincoln Quarshie eulogized the founding fathers of GCEA who through their toil have brought the association this far. He made a special mention of some living legends of founding fathers of GCEA like Ing. Asare Yeboah and Team Associated Consultants, Ing. Akwaboah, Ing. Joe Okyere and Ing. Albert Ogyiri.
Ing. Quarshie stated that Africa, and for that matter, Ghana is the best place Engineers should be at this time in terms of infrastructure development.
The GhIE 2016 infrastructure report card which focused on water, energy and the transportation sectors revealed that Ghana’s Infrastructure level is graded D. Evidently, it is a case of building to fit purpose needless to say, building infrastructure that last forever”, Ing. Quarshie added.
He therefore called on Government and other stakeholders to involve local Consulting Engineering as lead firms and promote joint ventures in the design and building of this infrastructure development and stressed the need for a local content policy and Act.
“It appears to be so much going on, however, many of our local firms are either not involved; and in some cases, they are like third party participants. As a country with a huge deficit of infrastructure, her engineering firms are key and cannot be bystanders or relegated to the background”, he explained.
Ing. Magnus added that the consulting industry, like in the other organized countries, is a key driver for industry and academia relationship where many students go through internship and mentorship. He continued that this would not happen with the going trend where local consulting businesses do not thrive.
The fifth President of GCEA, Ing. Magnus Lincoln Quarshie was led to swear the oath of office and pledged to lead the next Council to continue the good work by the past Council in the areas of developing local content policies for national discourse and creating visibility for the GCEA.
