Registration Eligibility and Unregistered Firm Practice
Engr. (Mrs.) Adaeze holds a B.Eng Chemical Engineering from a Nigerian university accredited in 2016 and an MSc from a UK university. She completed NYSC in 2017, worked for 5 years in a fertilizer plant, then 2 years as a process safety consultant. She applies for registration as a professional engineer. Her application is endorsed by two registered engineers, one of whom is her line manager. Meanwhile, her employer, GreenProcess Consulting Ltd, has been submitting process design packages to clients. The drawings bear the company seal but are signed by a technician registered as an engineering technician, not as an engineer. A client complaint alleges that a relief valve sizing calculation was signed off by an unregistered intern. Adaeze is asked to regularise the firm's status and respond to the complaint.
1. Assess Adaeze's eligibility for professional registration and identify any evidence gaps before a decision is made.
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Adaeze has a plausible eligibility profile, but registration should not be granted on the application as described. The B.Eng from an accredited programme satisfies the academic requirement; the UK MSc is supplementary and cannot substitute for an accredited first degree. NYSC completion in 2017 satisfies the national service requirement. Her 7 years of post-NYSC experience exceeds the usual minimum, but the quality matters more than the duration: 5 years in a fertilizer plant and 2 years in process safety consultancy should be tested for responsible charge, independent judgement, and exposure to design, operations, and safety. The endorsement by her line manager is acceptable only if the second endorser is independent and can attest to her competence; a single employer-based endorsement is weak. The panel should require a detailed experience portfolio with project examples, a log of responsibilities, CPD evidence, and transcripts. A professional interview should probe her role in relief valve sizing, hazard studies, and any designs she approved. If the evidence shows she mainly executed calculations under supervision rather than took responsible charge, the panel should defer and specify the additional supervised experience required.
2. Explain the firm registration and signing requirements that GreenProcess Consulting Ltd has breached, and what must be done to regularise the practice.
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Engineering consultancy practice is not regularised by a company seal alone. The firm must be registered with the regulator as an engineering firm and must have a registered engineer in responsible charge of its engineering work. Drawings and design packages must be signed and sealed by a registered engineer competent in the relevant discipline. A registered engineering technician may support work within a defined scope, but cannot sign off process design packages or assume engineering responsibility reserved for registered engineers. GreenProcess has therefore breached firm registration requirements and the signing rules. To regularise, the firm should appoint a registered chemical engineer as principal or responsible engineer, apply for firm registration with evidence of that appointment, withdraw and reissue affected drawings under the correct signature and seal, and introduce a design-checking procedure that prevents technicians from approving engineering deliverables. The firm should also provide a written undertaking and a timetable for reissuing all active packages, because clients may be relying on non-compliant documents.
3. Outline how Adaeze should handle the complaint about the relief valve sizing calculation signed off by an unregistered intern.
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Adaeze should treat the complaint as a regulatory and technical issue, not a public relations problem. First, preserve the calculation file, correspondence, and signature record; do not alter the document. Second, establish who performed, checked, and approved the calculation and whether the intern signed within or outside their scope. An intern cannot take engineering responsibility, so the firm's approval process failed even if the calculation is numerically correct. Third, have a registered chemical engineer independently re-check the relief valve sizing against the design basis, including scenarios, set pressure, back pressure, and fluid properties. If the sizing is wrong, the client must be notified promptly and the affected design corrected. Fourth, report the matter to the regulator honestly, with a root-cause analysis and corrective actions: approval authority restricted to registered engineers, mandatory checker sign-off, and training for interns on scope limits. Adaeze should avoid blaming the intern alone; the system allowed the signature. Cooperation and remediation are mitigating factors, but the firm should expect regulatory scrutiny of its registration status and may face sanctions for unauthorised practice.