Engineering Council of Zimbabwe chief executive officer Ben Rafemoyo has said that there is a serious shortage of engineers in the country as many qualified professionals are emigrating to other countries. Speaking at the Zimbabwe Infrastructure Development Conference, Rafemoyo said,
When we moved over to multi-currency we noticed a slow down on engineers migrating to other countries and others actually coming back home. With the scarcity of foreign currency and the coming in of the bond notes, which are also hard to come by, the reverse is happening now. Engineers, like other professionals, are looking for secure economies where they are able to pay for their children’s school and college fees…As our economy develops and gets to full throttle, we will be way off the mark in regards to the number of engineers this country requires, even if all 6 000 were around. Developing countries have figures of between 200 – 600 people per engineer, whilst Zimbabwe’s figures are nearly 3 000 people per engineer.
More: Business Times