More than 20 port administration personnel received their certificates of completion of modern port management training from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on September 23.
The Autonomous Port of Douala, as well as other administrations in the national port sector, has what it takes to meet current challenges. The transformation and modernization project for the port of Douala Bonabéri, finalization of the second phase of extension for the port of Kribi and the strengthening of the supervision capacity of the national port authority. Some staff from these administrations have just completed training in modern port management, certified by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The learners who constitute the 14 do promotion of modern port managers, received their certificates on September 23 during a ceremony chaired by Cyrus Ngo’o, Director General of the Autonomous Port of Douala.
This training aimed to strengthen the port staff’s knowledge of port activities and make them more efficient for their businesses. In particular, giving them tools on the actions to take to make ports more efficient and more competitive. Trainees completed over 200 hours of courses, during the period from October 2022 to September 2023. The modules were taught by local and international experts from the Train For Trade network. Each of them wrote a dissertation consisting of a case study concerning a real problem and providing concrete recommendations to improve the performance of port companies. Listening to the officials of the Autonomous Port of Douala, the company expects a lot from them. “ Most of them wrote a dissertation in which they made proposals. We will exploit them and very often the exploitation of these memories allows us to improve a certain number of areas of operation of our companies. Naturally, they are expected to perform better in their positions of responsibility. This is also why this certification on a social level generally gives them advancement in their career. », expressed Dieudonné Onana Ndoh, deputy director of the Container Terminal Authority.
Already 333 personnel have been trained as part of this program with UNCTAD called Train For Trade port training. In this number, 184 PAD agents.
« We thank the Director General of the Autonomous Port of Douala who made this prestigious international training possible. Our thanks also go to UNCTAD which initiated this training program relating to the upgrading of port sector personnel in order to face the increasingly numerous challenges in the maritime sector in general and ports in particular. » declared the spokesperson for the learners.
Reactions
Patricia WELADJI FONKOUE, major
“We have another perspective on port management”
“We had to work extra hard to avoid losing our place because the 8 modules constitute 50% and the defense 50%. So it was not only necessary to conserve and do better. This training opened our minds. It gives us another perspective of looking at port management and from there we start to implement everything we have learned and we are sure that by next year our service will completely change. We intend to place emphasis on control. We must anticipate unpaid debts because we realize that national administrations have many problems with unpaid debts. We must first look at the level of contractualization, put everything in place to anticipate unpaid debts and when it is already here we are just trying to get around it by emphasizing amicable recovery to the detriment of contentious recovery. So we proposed anticipatory measures. »
Cyrus NGO’O, DG Douala Autonomous Port
“This information is important for the competitiveness of the national port industry”
“The port is a unique space where logistical, commercial and administrative operations between private individuals and government entities are handled. A significant number of critical operations are carried out there for contractual issues which make the role of each actor preeminent. As a border, the port is both a place of passage and a barrier. It thus plays a filter role. The port is therefore a strategic infrastructure for the economy of a country. It is even more so for developing countries like us. With this reminder, I would like to emphasize the importance of the training sanctioned by the presentation of today’s parchments. Everyone in their sector will have to contribute the extensive knowledge acquired for the modernization and performance and competitiveness of the national port industry. This vintage had the baptismal name the new dynamic. This choice has important semantics. Indeed, the port sector like others elsewhere is in full evolution. We must adapt to the changes imposed on us by the constantly changing world and large companies here as elsewhere have a tendency to become bureaucratized due to their size. They are seen as organizations that are inherently resistant to change and the status quo is one that leads inexorably to decline; hence the importance of instilling a new dynamic and Cameroonian ports are committed to this path. You must therefore be the driving force behind this vast process which must align the national port industry with international standards in the sector. This involves the combination of two fundamental processes, that of change and innovation. »
