Below is the speech given by Mrs Ivy Apea Owusu, board chairman of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) at the 2019 AGM.
Fellow members, you are welcome to the fifth (5th) Annual General Meeting of our Chamber. It has been five (5) strong years of cooperating together to shape and drive the policy space. On behalf of the Board, I wish to thank members for your cooperation and support to ensure the success of the CBOD. In June of this year, we hope to embark on some activities to commemorate our fifth anniversary. While we may celebrate our milestone, we are deeply concerned about the impact of the regulators license re-categorization exercise which has seen the revocation of the licenses of some of our members. This situation is of optimal concern to the Board. We commissioned the Secretariat to explore and develop various collaboration proposals for consideration by possible affected members to enable them avert this occurrence. While the Chamber has been successful in facilitating efforts by some members to be compliant, it is yet to record any success. With interventions that require collaboration between members, the Board has tasked the Secretariat to continue to facilitate and support any member who may require any form of assistance to ensure compliance with the regulation and the reinstatement of their licensing status.
Dear members, as the industry continues to grow, and activities of other petroleum service providers impact the functionality or the success of our businesses, we are considering subject to broad consultation with members, the idea of expanding our membership base to include other service providers like the storage companies, mooring and port entities, refineries and some other selected service providers. To this end, we have commissioned the Secretariat to explore the technical plausibility of the suggestion and engage in broad consultation with members on what the optimal proposal should be. Coupled with other necessary revisions to provisions in our constitution, we anticipate the need to invite members in the near future to an emergency general meeting to consider amendments to our constitution. We humbly urge members to effectively participate in the entire exercise.
As the industry and the times evolve, it is imperative that as a Chamber, we re-examine our essence and modus operandi to ensure our continuous relevance to members and the policy space. We expect to gain adequate insights through the ongoing Strategic Review Survey being undertaken by the CBOD.
2019 is the last year of the current Board’s three-year tenure. We assure members of our continuous commitment to direct the Secretariat effectively to ensure constructive service to members. We urge members not to relent in their commitments to the cause of the Chamber and also not to hesitate in offering guidance and direction. We are hopeful of a very constructive 2019. I thank you and wish you all a successful AGM.
CBOD
