The Saudi Council of Engineers (SCE) — created by a royal decree to promote the engineering profession — will hold a special meeting on Sunday to discuss issues affecting its members.

“This will be a special meeting since the issues to be taken up are normally discussed by the SCE in a general assembly, which was already held last February,” said 57-year-old Ibrahim Abdullah Al-Hammad, member of SCE’s board of directors.

The issues to be discussed include a change in the bylaws which is not allowed by the board of directors.

Underscoring SCE’s importance, Al-Hammad said that the engineering organization issues licenses to engineers to practice their profession and have a rank.

“The thousands of foreign engineers in the Kingdom could not also practice their profession without accreditation from the SCE,” he said.

Al-Hammad said the meeting will be held through a power point presentation with members of SCE’s chapters in Jeddah and Dammam, following the proceedings through a teleconference.

He added that the meeting will also discuss if the voting procedure held every three years should be changed to digital so that regular members could vote from their homes. “Three months ago, a meeting on changing the voting scheme was also held but the result was inconclusive,” said Al-Hammad who received his doctoral degree in civil engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1991.

He is currently a professor in projects development and management at King Saud University (KSU) and a member of senate at Prince Sultan University.

He added that the meeting is in accordance with the desire of SCE members relayed through the board of directors which deals with SCE’s bylaws and the secretary-general, the executive branch.

“There seems to be a discussion why many Saudis are not paying membership fees,” said Al-Hammad who is also a visiting professor at Stuttgart University in Germany.

He added that the issue of whether regular members should waive their annual fees or not will also be discussed. The SCE’s board doesn’t authorize its bylaws to allow members to waive annual fees.

Regular members fall under three categories — entry level, associate ad consultants. At entry level, a member pays SR250 while an associate forks over SR500 and a consultant shells out SR750.

“Consultants are allowed to sign drawings, projects and calculation sheets which would be verified accordingly by the municipality before these are accepted and approved for implementation,” he said.

He added that regular members enjoy privileges in hotels and car rentals, among others, for paying their annual fees.