The Certificate of Compliance - a lesson to be learnt

A CERTIFICATE of Compliance (CoC) is required for all electrical installations, once they are complete. The certificate must be signed by a registered person - a registered installation electrician, an electrical tester for single phase or a master installation electrician.
In certain cases, the CoC must also be signed by the person responsible for the design of the installation. Both parties are required to include a registration number; and, in the case of the person responsible for the design, the registration number of a professional engineer. The whole point of this is to make sure that the installation complies with standards and is reasonably safe to operate.

There are a number of flaws with the system. Firstly, if there is no ‘design' signature, the registered person takes responsibility for the design. This is fairly sensible as a professional engineer wouldn't be expected to design the wiring of a bakery, for example, since this is well within the scope of work of an electrical contractor.
But, when the project gets much bigger it is imperative that the design part of the work must be signed by a professional engineer. And it is here, in some cases, where the wheels come off.
Due to the growth of corrupt tendering practices, there are a number of firms (all affirmative action types) trading as ‘electrical consultants' and who do design work (generally of a misdirected nature) but do not have a single professional engineer working for them. Thus, they hand out a design and tender document, which is usually flawed (in many respects), they get prices in and guess what... the same electrical contractors (one or two) always get the contract.
The successful contractor knows that the design is effectively rubbish and prices the work so that they can correct all the errors and effectively ‘carry' the electrical consultant. The result of this business practice is that the electrical contractor, when issuing the CoC, knowingly or unknowingly takes responsibility for the design of the whole installation - which may include 11 000V reticulation or reticulation at voltages even higher than this.

To illustrate, here is a story (altered so it can't be recognised, but nevertheless true): A so called ‘electrical consultant' issued a tender for the construction of an 11 000V power line. The electrical contractor erected the line and issued a CoC, which the ‘electrical consultant' signed as being responsible for design. The ‘electrical consultant' did not include a professional registration number because, in fact, the ‘electrical consultant' did not have one.
A major flaw in the line construction was that the electrical contractor did not put any stay wire insulators in the stay wires, which are bracing wires that support the stay poles. After a lighting strike, one conductor melted and fell onto a stay wire. The auto reclose system re-energised the line but, despite the electrical short onto the stay wire, the auto-recloser did not trip due to a high resistance earth path and because the stay wires were not effectively bonded to earth.
A young boy was passing by and, seeing the hanging conductor, went to look. He touched the conductor and was badly burnt and died. After the investigation into the incident, both the ‘electrical consultant' and the electrical contractor were charged with criminal negligence and culpable homicide.
The charge against the ‘electrical consultant' was changed to ‘fraudulent misrepresentation' since no professional registration number had been provided (although, in my opinion, this was done knowingly). The contractor pleaded guilty to criminal negligence and received a fine and a suspended sentence.
Was it worth it?
Now the contractor has a criminal record and all that goes with that.

The simple point I am making is this: A CoC is an acceptance of responsibility. If an electrical contractor accepts the responsibility for the design and the installation then it is a very serious obligation indeed. One should not think: "Oh, nothing can go wrong." because something will certainly go wrong and the results can be very damaging indeed.
I would suggest that, as a contractor, you should only sign the design part of a CoC if you are completely sure you know what you are doing. Otherwise, give it to the consulting engineer and say: "Here you are, get a professional engineer to sign this, not me..."