Accra (Greater Accra) 14 June ?99

As the millennium bug scare draws nearer, Mobil Oil Ghana Limited (MOGL), on Friday announced that it would be Y2K compliant by the end of July.

Mr Greg Murphy, Managing Director of MOGL, made the announcement at a Mobil Open Day ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary celebration of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG).

Speaking on "Organisational leadership for the next millennium", he said the company has constituted a committee to give a holistic approach to the millennium bug problem.

Y2K or the millennium bug, is a computer programming flaw that could cause computer systems and other electronic devices, programmed to record date information in two digits instead of four, to malfunction or completely shut down at the turn of year 2000.

Mr Murphy explained that Mobil has included its major suppliers and customers in its budget and technical support towards achieving Y2K compliance.

"We can assure you that between June and July this year, we will go ahead of the national Y2K compliance programme to be the first fuel company in Ghana to be Y2K compliant."

Giving an overview of the company's performance world wide, Mr Murphy said Mobil stands as the third world largest oil company providing lubrication for 30 per cent of ships, 45 per cent of aircraft and Benz cars across the world.

He said in Ghana, the company, which is second in marketing and first in profitability, recorded a turnover of 325.3 billion cedis last year, representing 31 per cent increase over that of 1994, which stood at 108.6 billion cedis.

"Between 1994 and 1998, our operational profit shot up at a rate of 59.1 per cent from 1.6 billion cedis to 10.6 billion cedis", Mr Murphy stated, adding that the company retained 63.5 billion of its total profits last year, as against 38.3 billion cedis in 1994.

Mr Murphy said within the same period the company's share price on the stock market increased from 4,100 cedis to 17,000 cedis, benefiting 5,000 individual shareholders of 40 per cent of its shares, which represents 450,000 shares.

He said through effective strategies, Mobil has been able to convert about 90 per cent of its operational profit into cash totalling 7.3 billion cedis to make the company firmly cash-based.

The Mobil boss said this, added to the 9.2 billion cash generated from sales of products, has cushioned Mobil against pressures from bank, financial crisis and other such conditions that militate against obtaining adequate capital funding for progress in the next millennium.

Giving an overview of the financial performance of the company, Mr Joseph Aryeh, Accountant of MOGL said in the next millennium, the company would focus on reducing operational expenses through its Activity Based Costing (ABC) facility.

He explained that under the ABC, the company would reduce the prices of its products to a level where it can influence selling price of lubricants and fuel and know how much they are making on each product and from each customer.

"That way we can know how to improve on our profits strategically without burdening the customer with higher prices- and also increase the shareholders' wealth in the next millennium."