Ipoh City Council (MBI) and the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) recently signed an MOU to cooperate on aspects related to all engineering issues. The MOU would be a formal link providing MBI an important network to assist in their areas of engineering development, be it through training, seminars and international conferences.
The MOU was signed by just retired Ipoh Mayor Dato’ Roshidi Hashim and the President of IEM Ir Choo Kok Beng. According to Choo, the initial cooperation would involve a lot of training.
Choo explained that councils are too busy and would not have the time to train. “Training can be expensive but with our MOU we can reduce the cost as we have the resources and it comes with international expertise.”
Other areas of sharing could be in flood mitigation and health. He elaborated that Ipoh has a lot of ongoing construction projects where dengue mosquitoes breed. IEM through its engineers can help mitigate the control of breeding places at construction sites.
Another positive contribution will be creating a maintenance culture where trained engineers can be the eyes and ears to notice engineering and maintenance shortcomings during regular inspections and provide feedback to the council for improvements.
Roshidi welcomed the MOU with IEM saying that the cooperation had many areas of mutual benefits for the Council’s engineers as well as for the public who would have an independent opinion provided by IEM during dialogues.
Roshidi also highlighted that IEM had plans to host an international convention in 2015 and thanked Choo for helping to promote Ipoh as an international convention centre.
JAG
