INDUSTRY NEWS

from Lifting Africa May/Jun 2020

Proof load test water bags

Education before registration

As the past chairman of LEEASA, a recognised VA and an ex-councillor at ECSA, I need to bring to the attention of the department that there are serious problems regarding the competency of the LMI’s being registered at ECSA.

This is being debated on the various WhatsApp groups with no solution to resolve the predicament. The solution exists and has been ignored. Who am I to make a judgment of this nature? Because of my background of 20 plus years in the hydraulic industry, I had been exposed to many lifting problems. Having been in the lifting industry for over 30 years, I have fixed, redesigned and modified equipment to function properly. A list of categories for which LMI's should be registered for has been submitted and include tackle, chain blocks, forklifts, mobile cranes, overhead cranes, tower cranes, ship cranes, wharf side cranes, reach stackers, straddle carriers, container cranes, aerial platforms, suspended access platforms, industrial lifting devices, under the hook non fixed devices, tail lifters and vehicle hoists.

It now remains the responsibility of the new assessors contributing at ECSA to revise this. The dominating areas that influence the lifting industry are mechanical, structural, electrical/ electronic and hydraulics. I recently did a presentation at the DoEL on hydraulics and they were amazed to find out that hydraulics influences all of these except for tackle. 1. The OHS Act states very clearly that an LMI and or an LTI should be competent. The definition of the competent person is quite clear as indicated in the definitions of the DMR regulations. 2. ECSA has always had an issue with specified categories when it comes to education because ECSA recognises NQF5 as the benchmark. The tertiary education sector is very well represented at ECSA including representation of our universities. However, it has always been thrown in our faces that our sector does not have a qualification which is incorrect.

3. When we started our specified category for LMI’s, we wrote a level 5 qualification which was registered with SAQA at the time. This was motivated by the DoL who engaged with the merSeta. 4. Registered level 5 qualifications used by the tertiary educators are compiled on the outcome-based system only and do not have assessment criteria to underpin the outcomes. As a result of this, our group was tasked to redo the qualification and include assessment criteria.

This we did and one year later we had done 9 unit standards to cover our range of equipment. 5. When we were finished we submitted these unit standards to SAQA for registration only to learn that the QCTO had been established and that these unit standards had to be registered by the QCTO which opening it’s doors in 3 months. This never happened in 3 months but only started 3 to 4 years later. 6. At this point, ECSA then re-did our qualification based on simply elaborating on what we had already done.This group of documents has included some other disciplines,

and we can now reference documents on the ECSA website eg. R-05 etc. 7. The complaints and concerns from our industry are that we are not educating our candidates before registration and we continue to use the alternative route which is not producing the desired results. Any profession has a compulsory requirement of education before registration. Why not us?? 8. Most of our candidates come from trades and the missing competencies are achievable at level NQF 4. These courses are presented by many registered and accredited training centres presented by qualified and registered facilitators, assessors and moderators.

9. So where do we go from here? The solution is simple. Recognise these facilities and stop the alternative route as the only route. (the alternative route should only be used in very exceptional cases.) 10. The benefits of this system are that the accredited training providers are audited and the structure is formal.

11. We all know that ECSA is not allowed to audit individual training providers registered at the Setas, but if training providers allow LEEASA subject matter experts who serve on the SABS, to audit the content of the learning material to meet the technical requirements as defined in our SANS standards. 12. All this is possible through bilateral agreements. There are enough ethical registered training providers who are willing to get involved in short notice.We also have qualified facilitators, assessors and moderators ready to get involved. I believe that any reputable professional wants to be audited to maintain the correct standards. 13. There are subject matter experts who serve on various SANS committees who will be willing to get involved. What are we waiting for? In light of the Pandemic, this progress can still take place because the need for LMI's is still growing and has not reached a saturation point yet. The president has indicated that the government will be driving the economy by improving services. This will mean the construction industry, in which many lifting machines are used. Therefore LMI's will be in demand. Our industry is crying out for this type of progress. Although I have retired from the formal process at ECSA I am still actively training and offering registered CPD courses to LMI’s through LMI Academy. Reg. LMI. 2007120003.