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Lady Allen and WiMAC get warm KFLT welcome

Published:Sunday | October 30, 2016 | 12:00 AM
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Contributed
Security and safety manager of Kingston Freeport Terminal Limited and new member of Woman in Maritime Association Caribbean (WiMAC) receives her membership pin from Lady Allen, wife of the Governor General.
Contributed
From left: Denise Aiken, director of corporate affairs of the Women in Maritime Association, Caribbean (WiMAC); Vivette Grant, vice president of WiMAC; Claudia Grant; Olivier Tretout, chief executive officer, Kingston Freeport Terminal Limited (KFTL); Kamara Lambert, National Liaison of WiMAC; Nicole Wickham Whyte, alternate national liaison of WiMAC and Dwane Forrester, deputy chief executive officer of KFTL celebrate the visit of the CMA CGM Tanya to Jamaica.
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It was a bleak and rainy morning when the wife of Jamaica's governor general, Lady Allen, joined the Women in Maritime Association Caribbean's (WiMAC) Jamaica members at the offices of Kingston Freeport Terminal Limited (KFTL). They received such a warm reception from the KFTL team that it seemed to blow the rain away. The occasion was a tour of the MV CMA CGM Tanya. The visit occurred on the same day that Captain Dean took over this eight-month-old vessel during its maiden voyage to Port Bustamante en route from Cartagena and to Caucedo.

A formidable structure capable of holding 10,034 TEUs of cargo, the Neo Panamax CMA CGM Tanya is named for Tanya Saade Zeenny, executive director for the France-based CMA CGM Group.

 

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY

 

The occasion highlighted the role of women in the shipping industry and recognised the female crew members of the Tanya. The president of WiMAC, Claudia Grant, bestowed honorary WiMAC membership on them, making them the regional body's first international members. She also presented Captain Dean a token etched with the date Friday, October 21, 2016 to mark this first entry into the Port of Kingston.

To date, KFTL, under the leadership of CEO Olivier Tretout, has managed to improve the productivity of the terminal and significantly increase the number of vessels of various sizes taking advantage of its services. As a result, KFTL has become one of the leading terminals in productivity among the terminals at which CMA CGM vessels call. This improvement has allowed KFTL to accept additional volumes from Mediterranean Shipping Company as they seek to cope with volumes displaced from their Freeport Bahamas Terminal, which sustained damage from the passage of Hurricane Matthew.

Members of the KFTL management team that went on board included: Karen Sutherland - CFO; Dianne Goban, HR manager and Kelly Greenaway, legal counsel. At a small reception which followed the tour, the CEO Olivier Tretout joined the women of WiMAC and staff of CMA CGM and KFTL in welcoming Lady Allen and the other visitors to the terminal and adding his support to the efforts of the organisation. In his comments, Tretout affirmed that KFTL holds high, the ideals of gender equality and the empowerment of the entire workforce.

WiMAC was created out of the IMO decision to place the human element and capacity-building high on its agenda, along with a commitment to reach out to every sector of the shipping community in an effort to attract the very best people to pursue careers in the maritime sector. Consistent with this position, the IMO also decided to promote the increased participation of women in the sector through its support of the programme for the Integration of Women in the Maritime Sector. This programme, which operates on a regional structure, remains the IMO primary vehicle for supporting the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 3 to 'promote gender equality and empower women'.

As the visiting women left the terminal and went back to the daily business of shipping, they were planning ways to deepen their ties with KFTL and other such organisations.