This year, The IEPNG Inc. AGM was held via Zoom & its presentation/discussion hosted at Lamana Hotel on July 24. The following are just my experience on the event and the highlights for information purposes. An AGM is the mandatory meeting of the general membership of an organization primarily to conduct business on electing directors, voting on issues, informing members of previous & future activities according to Wikipedia. At the meeting, the president/chairman presides over the meeting and may present both annual & overall status of the organization, & the members raise questions.
2019/2020 IEPNG AGM commences around 9 am with light refreshment, followed by welcoming remarks at 9:30am when the quorum reached about 30+ members, and ended with buffet lunch around 1pm. It was an experience to remember & an inspiration to me as a graduate engineer, especially seeing other senior engineers of various fields of engineering present & engages in the meeting. Not only I come to acknowledge what institution has contributed so far but really want to be part of it. The outline follows of the meeting are as follows; after welcoming remarks & opening prayer, the meeting was declared open once the quorum is reached, followed by the business of previous meeting minutes, presentation of annual report, important business matters (varies), election and declaration of council members, AOB, date of next AGM & the close of meeting. The following are the highlights;
1) Welcome remarks by The President, Ms. Zurecnuoc ML, the IEPNG Inc. and its members are given a provisional status of the APEC Engineers Agreement on June 25 2020. Which is an awesome news applauded by the audience and to be cherished by all registered professional engineers in PNG.
2) 2018 meeting minutes presented by The CEO, Mr. Mick, in which one of the major actions reported, was the presentation of terms of reference for the Steering Committee on Infrastructure Projects Schedule for Unit. Soon (18months durations) there will a unit cost (rate) schedule to be formulated for all the projects that are carried out within the legal jurisdiction of PNG & information on the custodian of the guideline. This is should be awesome.
3) Presentation of annual report by The CEO includes a) Audited Financial Report 2019; b) Information System Audit Review Report 2019; c) Member Services Report, total of renewal & new applications processed of 573 & 496; d) Branch Reports of Pom, Lae, &Highlands Branches; e) other worthy mentions are International Partnership like International Engineering Alliance IEA, Federation of Engineers Institution of Asia & Pacific FEIAP, APEC Engineers Register. Also, The Women in Engineering WIE Group report & their part in the violence against women campaign.
4) Important business agendas includes; a) Strategic cooperate plan update - To name a few such as to endure Unitech complies with Washington Accord & Polytech to align engineering programs to Sydney Accord, to get APEC Engineers Register membership, to deliver CPD webinars, to provide industrial training opportunities, roll out new GPDP, amend laws to enable recruitment of 2 nationals for every expatriate to work in PNG, etc. b) The Constitution Amendments – Section 8.3 & 10, includes new rule of 8.3(e) for students applying for free; c) The launching of the IEPNG inc. official website - iepng.org/ is now active and any party can browse for information’s and members to login to get their status update.
Final agendas are the election and declaration of council members, followed by AOB and closing with next AGM date set to be held on April 23 2021 in Goroka. Visit website and at the About Section under governance there is information about the council members of IPNG Inc & PERB.
To sum it up, as graduate engineer, I should say that the institution is here to serve the interest of PNG engineers and could be a drive in their careers as professionals and put our name on the global community. This calls for participations for each and every one in the field to be active members, share their expertise, and contribute professionally & ethically to build this beautiful nation together. I was fortunate to attend and acknowledge all responsible parties who have made it possible. I for one will be an advocate for the institution & what it stands for.
