Secretary General of the Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa (MOWCA) has paid a courtesy call on the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mamadi Gobeh Kamara at her tower hill office in Freetown.
Speaking during a brief engagement, Secretary General Adalikwu said that he was in Sierra Leone to meet with the Minister of Transport and other key stakeholders especially in the maritime sector to discuss how MOWCA can support their work.
He noted that MOWCA’s objective is to serve the regional and international community in handling all maritime matters that are regional in character such as promote cost-effective maritime transport services, maritime safety and security, information flow, capacity building of maritime transport among others.
In addition, MOWCA is also looking at ways of providing scholarships to young Sierra Leonean men and women, to boost the human capacity in the maritime agencies, offer assistance to remote communities, where Government find it exigent to provide transport and maritime safety and security he added.
MOWCA, he went on unifies 25 countries on the West and Central African shipping range (inclusive of five landlocked countries) which is comprised of 20 coastal states bordering the North and South Atlantic Ocean.
He expressed appreciation to Sierra Leone for the role played especially by the Minister of Transport, Kabineh Kallon leading to his successful election and pledged to support Sierra Leone’s maritime sector to be able to surmount some of their critical challenges. He called for more support from government through the Transport Ministry so that his tenure will be a successful one.
Responding Deputy Foreign Minister congratulated Dr Adalikwu on assuming the role of Secretary General of MOWCA and pledged Sierra Leone’s support for a successful tenure of office. She said that Nigeria and Sierra Leone share a long history of friendship and good bilateral relations adding that the West African nation played a pivotal role to end the rebel war in Sierra Leone. She said recently, Nigeria supported Sierra Leone to emerge as the sole candidate bidding for a seat at the United Nation’s Security Council in a non-permanent category.
Both countries continue to collaborate in diverse areas such as Education, Health, Trade and the Financial sector for mutual beneficiation.
She informed Secretary General that there is a lot is happening to overhaul the maritime sector, but more support will be required to improve on their operations. These days you hardly hear about boat and other accidents at sea, because of series of measure instituted by the Maritime agency in Sierra Leone but called on him to put Sierra Leone on the priority list of countries that will benefit from capacity building for maritime transport actors, safety and security trainings programs, sustainable financing of the maritime transport industry to better equip them in the execution of their tasks.
She thanked Dr Paul Adalikwu for visiting the Foreign Ministry and assured him of their support at time.
