Engineers have been charged to bring their expertise to bear on the nation’s development processes.

Professor Samuel Innocent Ampadu, the Provost of the College of Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), made the call at a matriculation ceremony for more than 900 newly-graduated engineers.

He noted that engineers by their training, were critical in the areas of planning, project implementation, infrastructure development and disaster management need, to positively impact on the economy.

They should, therefore, forge closer collaboration with policy makers and authorities of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, to achieve Ghana’s development agenda.

“We have given you the training, but a lot more is expected of you in our quest to improve the living conditions and safety of the people, through well-executed projects which could stand the test of time,” Prof Ampadu told the graduating students.

He was hopeful that with the active involvement of engineers at all stages of development, particularly as pertained to construction, the incidence of flooding and other disasters, could be reduced to the barest minimum.

The graduates were awarded certificates in all the 15 programmes of study run by the College, ranging from Chemical, Agricultural, Aerospace, Petrochemical and Petroleum, Metallurgical, Telecommunications, Mechanical, Electrical to Geological Engineering.

Engineering, one of the flagship academic programmes at the KNUST, continues to attract students from all over the world, with the majority of them graduating to spearhead the development of their countries in various capacities.

This year’s matriculation saw a total of 91 students, constituting about eight per cent, graduating with First Class Degrees, and 391 also graduating in the Second Class Upper Division, while the rest fell within the Second Class Lower and Pass Division.