It's amazing how quickly the years pass as we now approach the end of 2021! Of course, Covid has continued to disrupt but it does seem to be in retreat as the vaccines are rolled out and the world slowly returns to a new normality. The pandemic has certainly caused great problems to many businesses, though at D&S we have all worked hard to manage it and the year will close with business levels slightly up. We are grateful for this.

September is the start of the D&S Group's 'operational year' that is driven by the Planning exercise initiated at the annual Management Conference, now a 30-year old tradition. The format has recently morphed as we adapt to the Group's increasing size and complexity and also to the Covid constraints and is now largely a virtual event that enables greater participation and wider communication of the content. Themed D&S v3.0 to reflect the new version of D&S that must evolve in response to the Group's changing environment and creatively organised by CEO David Gatende, the programme was varied and included input from about 150 internal and external presenters, the virtual format enabling international participation from speakers in Italy, China and the UK as well as various physical contributions. The keynote speech was given by internationally renowned authority on Strategic Management Prof Costas Markides from the London Business School who made a fascinating and entertaining contribution that highlighted the priorities for corporate success and raised important issues on the future challenges all businesses will face.
A tradition of the conference is the presentation of various Management awards, details been given elsewhere, though I particularly congratulate Branch Manager of the Year Wisdom Mvula from Solwezi, Zambia and Commended Managers Bupe Mwamba, Penny Mbabazi and Beatrice Roman, the lady Chief Accountants from the three main subsidiaries who all do excellent jobs, especially grappling with the various local compliance issues and Engineers Gilbert Barasa and Philip Walusimbi who are so creative in developing new high tech products and solutions for the Group. Manager of the Year was awarded for the third time to executive Margaret Kuchio for the exceptional job she has done in leading the 43 location Kenyan branch network. I am very grateful to them all.

In spite of progress in confronting the Covid menace several other challenges have evolved as a consequence that are increasingly impinging on our lives. Particularly are disruptions to the global supply chain with various material shortage and price increases being experienced, freight costs rising and consignment deliveries being delayed. These problems are likely to exacerbate before improving sometime next year and D&S has been affected like everyone else with reduced product availability and inevitable price increases. We're doing our best to address these challenges though apologies to our many customers for the inevitable inconveniences they may be experiencing.