The Conference cancellation followed a move by the newly elected Tanzania President John Magufuli’s to relieve several Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) top managers including the Director General of their duties and to dissolve the Authority’s entire board of directors. The conference was to be hosted by TPA in conjunction with PMAESA.
The Secretariat is now focusing on the 2016 Conference to be held in Khartoum Sudan in the month of November.
The theme for the November conference and speakers remains the same. The conference theme was “Port Strategies for Harnessing the African Blue Economy & Investment Options.” The sub themes included ‘the outlook of the blue economy’; investment opportunities and infrastructure; and ‘coastal tourism, ship repairs and cabbotage, state of fisheries and aqua culture.’
In the meantime, the PMAESA Council, Board and Technical Committee meetings which are normally held together with the conference will be rescheduled to a different venue and date to be announced in due cause.
The Board meeting for the Cruise Indian Ocean Association – a body entrusted with marketing regional ports as a cruise destination, will be held alongside the PMAESA Council meeting.
For the last eight years PMAESA has been running an international conference alongside its Council meetings with a view of availing its members, maritime experts and stakeholders in the related with an information sharing platform.
This will be the first time for the annual PMAESA conference to fail to take place since its inception in 2007 in Seychelles.
This was followed by a conference in Djibouti which was also combined with the 6th Pan African Ports Cooperation (PAPC) Conference in 2008, Durban, South Africa (2009); Arusha, Tanzania played host to a combination the 8th PAPC in 2010, followed by Swakopmund, Namibia in 2011 and Cape Town in 2012.
The colorful conference marking PMAESA’s 40th anniversary was held in 2013 in Durban, South Africa followed by the 10th PAPC conference in Mombasa, Kenya.