Minister Loustau-Lalanne visits SPA head office |25 February 2017

The Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine, Maurice Loustau- Lalanne, and the principal secretary (PS) for Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine, Garry Albert, visited the Seychelles Ports Authority (SPA) headquarters at the New Port on Friday last week.

The Minister was introduced to the SPA deputy chief executive and directors who gave an overview of their respective areas of responsibility.

The chief executive of SPA, Colonel André Ciseau, gave a detailed presentation on SPA, tasks in hand and the forward strategies of the organisation.

Col. Ciseau also presented to the minister strategies that SPA is adopting to address various challenges being faced by the authority such as human resources development which is the key to getting SPA to operate round the clock, 365 days a year and in all weather conditions.

The CEO also briefed the minister on the vision, mission and objectives of SPA and the mandate given by the government and people of Seychelles in the SPA Act of 2004.

Following the presentation, the minister had the chance to visit parts of the port premises and witnessed for himself the critical structural damages to the quay superstructure and was briefed on the ongoing progress to address them.

The minister was also apprised of SPA’s port infrastructure plans for Mahé, Praslin and La Digue, business strategies to continuously identify new opportunities locally and at the regional level as well as the SPA’s strategies to play a more active role regionally in order to remain abreast of the fast pace of developments and opportunities in the port and maritime sectors.

To note that SPA, through its regional cooperation programme, presently has two of its staff attached to the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) for an orientation programme. A similar programme will be extended to KPA by SPA in reciprocity.

The minister and PS were able to question and exchange ideas with the SPA officers present.

The minister’s first visit at the SPA since taking over the portfolio responsibility for the port is one of many planned, and the next one will focus on meeting with the SPA staff at their duty station.

The visit ended with a tour of the Mahé Quay and the minister signing the SPA visitors’ book.