This is one of those stories that do worry me a bit.
South Africa's professional engineering councils, who were branded as racist gatekeepers in recent parliamentary public hearings, are warning the minister of public works that if bridges start to collapse she will be the one facing legal action.

Transformation is at the heart of a dispute between South Africa's professional engineering councils and the Department of Public Works over the Built Environment Bill.

The professional engineering bodies are suspicious of the broad powers that the Bill gives to Public Works Minister Thoko Didiza and believe that the department wants to do away with the peer review system, which is used to register engineers and could lead to South Africa losing international recognition for its professionals.

The Department of Public Works wants to streamline the registration process for the built environment professions as they feel that there are not enough previously disadvantaged individuals entering the system and there is a view that white professionals who run the industry councils are acting as gatekeepers.

The built environment professions include architecture, project and construction management, engineering, landscape architecture, property valuation and quantity surveying.
full story from M&G here
It's not just the view that professions that haven't achieved much transformation as yet are assumed to be preventing previously disadvantaged entrants on the basis of race - it's the notion that the problem is solvable by government taking over the quality control function of the council.

I've experienced first hand what a problem government administered registration of trade technicians can be. What's next? Medical and dental council?

Self-regulation is obviously encouraged only if it is producing the desired results, and that seems to have nothing to do with maintaining acceptable quality standards.