Legal corner: Guidelines for engineering profession Thursday, 15 September 2011 02:15

By Abdelaal A Khalil

Engineers and engineering consultancy firms are subject to the law on practising the engineering professions (19/2005), which regulates the activities of the profession and engineering consultancy in Qatar where the General Authority for Urban Planning and Development supervises the engineering activities in the disciplines of architecture, civil, electrical, mechanical, chemical and mining engineering and other different fields in addition to the engineering consultancies which prepare the graphics, charts and architectural designs, surveys, plans, and supervise the construction, give advice, conduct feasibility studies and cost estimation and calculation of quantities and manage projects. Any of the engineering professions can be practised only after the registration in the register of engineers. The engineering consulatancies can perform the activity only after the registration in the register of domestic and international engineering consultancy. The registration is a licence to practise the profession. The engineer or the office of the engineering consultancy cannot work in the non-specialized fields or which they have not been permitted to. Under the law, the committee shall accept and record the engineers and the offices of engineering consultancy as well as determine and divide the professions according to the technical specialties. It shall classify the engineers and international and domestic engineering consultancy offices. The engineers and engineering consultancy offices are registered with the register of engineers or in the register of the international and domestic engineering consultancy offices, which are prepared by the General Authority for Urban Planning and Development. The registration of the natural persons in the register requires that the applicant must be a Qatari citizen or resident of the state and he must have obtained a bachelor’s degree in engineering or its equivalent from a recognized university or institute and he must have good character and reputation. The domestic offices of engineering consulatncy firms must be owned by Qatari natural or juristic persons and the engineers working in the office must be registered and have the necessary expertise to practise the profession. The office is bound to appoint one or more responsible engineer who is competent to give opinions on the engineering and technical matters and sign and adopt the designs, contracts and engineering and technical works undertaken by the domestic and international engineering consultancy offices. The registration of the companies established by natural and juristic persons to practice the profession requires that the share of the Qatari partners in the capital must not be less than (51 percent) and non-Qatari partners must be engineers registered in the register of engineers or they are from the offices working in the field of consulting engineering.

The conditions for registration require that the office must be a branch of a main office outside the country, which is licensed to practise the profession which issued the license and it is required to have passed at least ten years since the issuance of this license, through which the main office practiced work. The office shall provide the applicant of the license an undertaking from the head office certified by the concerned Qatari embassy, which includes that it is committed to support the office and bear all the obligations that arise from the practice of the profession of engineering consultancy in the country. The office shall prove with the official documents the agreement of establishment of the head office and its statute, if found, its activity, its financial solvency and work done outside the state. The engineer in charge of the branch of the office must be registered and must have obtained a degree from a recognized university or institute mentiong his specialization in one of branches of engineering and his work experience must not be less than ten years as well as the other engineers working in the office must meet the scientific and technical conditions which are necessary to practise the activity of the office.

Finally, the Board of Directors of the Urban Planning and Development can permit non-Qatari natural and juristic persons to practise the engineering professions in some technical specialties which are not available in the country or which requires the experience and technology necessary for the purposes of development without compliance with the conditions laid down in the law. The law also pointed out that the period of registration in the register of engineers and the register of engineering consultancy offices is two years. The registration must be renewed within thirty days of its expiry. The non-renewal shall write off the name from the register after warning the offender with a registered letter and the passage of thirty days from the date of the warning.

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