essential materials sustainable solutions
FROM THE DESK OF: GORDON BEST, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MPANI
WE ARE ESSENTIAL, REALISE IT, COMMUNICATE IT Gordon Best, MPANI
I am pleased to inform you that we plan to publish our MPANI 2022/23 Journal in June /July of this year and hopefully, if the political position with hopefully a new NI Executive allows to publicly launch the Journal in the Long Gallery Stormont in late summer. Our Journal, and now the new videos we produced, will highlight the service we have delivered over many years and during the COVID Emergency, our achievements and of course the challenges we face as an Association and Industry over the next two years and our objectives beyond. The title for this next Journal is “MPANI 2022/23 – We are Essential, Realise It, Communicate It”. Well, you already know that, but it’s important to remember that at the start of Covid in early 2020, when other businesses and sectors were being forced to close, the NI Executive recognised our own mineral products industry as key and essential to keeping the economy going. So be proud of your business, be proud of your employees and be proud of the role you play in your local community and wider society. As usual our MPANI 2022/23 Journal will be packed with hard-hitting, informative editorials authored by industry leaders, specialists, and high-ranking figures. As in past years this Journal will be the most comprehensive source of information on how the Northern Ireland mineral products industry is viewed by our stakeholders. We will have a leading figure from within Northern Ireland writing a Foreword, we will have comment paragraphs written by leading figures from within local Government, comment from other construction industry representative organisations and views from a number of NGOs that the MPANI partners with. We will again have comment from the Younger Generation of Managers and from Women, who play such an important role across so many parts of our sector, on how they see the future and what we
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need to do to attract young people and improve the diversity within our Industry.
power of good will again overcome and win through over evil. We stand with Ukraine!!
Our last journal “MPANI 2020/21” was published at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic and during varying degrees of lock down and yet we still produced, with your input and support, a 140 page edition packed with positive news and contributions. Let’s hope we do even better this time!
PRIORITIES FOR GOVERNMENT
Since the last edition of Plant a lot has happened.We are starting to at last emerge from the constraints of the Covid pandemic, we have been experiencing unprecedented fuel and construction material inflation along with labour and skill shortages, we had no functioning NI Executive and we are now in election mode. Then suddenly the Kremlin launches and invasion of Ukraine throwing Europe and possibly the world into further turmoil and uncertainty. My hope and prayers, and I am sure yours also, is that peace and the
During March MPANI met with our political parties, ahead of the Assembly election, to discuss “Priorities for Government” paper. It is vitally important, as I am sure you will agree, that our Industry’s voice is heard and your interests and right to operate is protected. Another indispensable part of MPANI’s work will be sustaining the relationships we have built over the years with Government, Councils, NGOs and other Construction Industry organisations. Our goal will be to sustain and develop these working relationships going forward so that we not only protect your business, but the whole NI economy and the futures of our valued employees.
From left: Paddy Mohan, MPANI Vice Chair, Mannok; Paul Brogan, MPANI Chair, McQuillan Companies; Simon McDowell, Immediate Past MPANI Chair, Kilwaughter Minerals Ltd; Gordon Best, MPANI Regional Director.
