The Board of Directors and management of the Sierra Leone Ports Authority on last Friday warmly received Sierra Leone Ports Authority & Sierra Leone Maritime Administration Co-sponsored students of the Regional Maritime University, Ghana who visited Port Management to present their certificates and appreciation for the unflinching support given to them by SLPA management.
The students were Raju Gidwani, Nabieu Bangura, Bernard Johnson and John Sandy. Raju Gidwani and Nabieu Bangura have graduated with Second Class Upper degrees in Nautical Sciences while Bernard Johnson and John Sandy are in their final year in the same discipline.
SLPA Human Resource Manager Alhassan Tejan Jalloh presented the students to SLPA Board and Management.
Addressing the students, Chairman of the Board of Directors, SLPA, Moses Sesay welcomed and thanked the students whom he described as an “academic heroes” for their accomplishments. He said to study abroad is not an easy task.
On his part, SLPA General Manager Abu B Bangura told the students that the Port is poised to build human capacity especially in maritime related disciplines. He said the Port does not only sponsor none-staff students but also provide overseas short and long-term courses for its staff. Bangura said this development is necessitated by the current transformation which the Port is going through. He wished the students the best of luck.
Other Board members expressed similar sentiments and admonished the students to add values to the maritime industry.
The students were formally sponsored by Bernard Shulte, a Shipping Company who discontinued their sponsorship when it folded-up operations due Ebola outbreak. One of the students, Raju Gidwani spoke to SLPA Public Relations Department. This is his revelation:
“We entered the Regional Maritime University with Sponsorship from Bernard Shulte, an international Shipping Company established in Sierra Leone. They ceased to sponsor us while we were in Second year when the company folded up operations due to ebola outbreak. We forwarded our case to the Minister of Transport & Aviation, Leonard Balagun Koroma who by then was the Regional Maritime University Chancellor. He assured of his intervention and promised SLPA & SLMA would continue to sponsor us. Since then SLPA & SLMA took up the sponsorship to this end. We are very much grateful to them for being integral players in our accomplishment.”
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Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
