5 October 2016
Singapore Water Association 13th Annual General Meeting
The 13th AGM of the Association held on 5 October at WaterHub was attended by 34 members. SWA President, Mr Tan Cheng Guan, began the meeting by giving an overview of SWA’s activities throughout the year.
Today, our membership stands at 255, which is 2.7% lower as compared to the reported figure last year. The reason is due to the implementation of Clause 5.2 of the constitution on members with arrears for more than 12 months. Following this exercise, 32 members had their membership terminated. One of the key principles of exercising Clause 5.2 is to ensure fairness to the vast majority of the paying members. The removal of members who failed to pay their membership dues on time means that they do not continue to enjoy SWA membership programmes, activities and/or benefits. The Council has decided to exercise the policy this year in view that SWA has had a good financial year and it allows us to reflect the real picture of our membership.
A total of 192 participants attended seven training courses and three technical site visits organised by SWA in partnership with PUB, WDA and other relevant organisations. In the coming year, SWA will identify the training needs of our members and plan and organise new courses to meet these needs so as to keep our training programme relevant to members. Thus it was important for SWA to explore partnerships with the newly established Singapore Water Academy (SgWA) by PUB and other institutions or industry experts with relevant operational experience to develop and conduct training courses as well as to examine other options to contribute towards the capability development of the water industry.
A key platform for profiling and marketing this year was the Singapore International Water Week in July, in which members of SWA continued to have a strong presence. 37 companies occupied 684 sqm of booth space at the Singapore pavilion organised by SWA. During the week, SWA inked two MOUs with Malaysian Water Association and Southeast Asian Water Utilities Network to create more cooperation activities for the mutual benefits of the respective associations.
Held in conjunction with SIWW, the SWA Golf Tournament returned on 10 July 2016 at the Singapore Island Country Club’s New Course. Graced by Guest of Honour Mr Masagos Zulkifli, Minister for the Environment & Water Resources, the SWA Golf welcomed several distinguished guests, such as the Senior Minister for Cambodia’s Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts and Brunei’s Minister of Development and 100 SWA members and SIWW delegates.
Supported by IE Singapore, SWA led water industry contingents to countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam over the course of the year. As part of our on-going effort to profile the association internationally and to enable members to promote their products and services through water exhibitions, we are expanding our global footprint to more new markets such as Sri Lanka and Laos. Plans for organising a business mission to Indonesia is also underway. SWA has elected a new SWA Council FY2016 – 2018 during the Annual General Meeting.
