PMAWCA Secretary General takes over as Director General of Ghana Ports

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Mr. Michael Luguje

Secretary
General of the Ports Management Association of West and Central Africa
(PMAWCA), Mr. Micheal Achagwe
Luguje, on Monday 2 July 2018, officially assumed office as Director
General of the Ghana Ports and Habours Authority (GPHA).

Luguje’s appointment was approved in June by President Nana Addo Dankwa
Akufo-Addo, following
his decision to sack the erstwhile Director General Mr. Paul Asare. The Director
of Tema Ports, Mr. Edward Kofi Osei, was directed to hold forth while Luguje
“clears” his desk at the PMAWCA Secretariat in Lagos, Nigeria.

An accomplished bilingual port management specialist, who has served at very senior
levels at international port and maritime institutions, Luguje’s managerial
skills, will no doubt help GPHA to reposition Ghana as the preferred hub of
maritime commerce in West Africa, in line with President’s Akufo-Addo’s vision.

Luguje has
garnered extensive cognate experience in the ports sector of West
and Central Africa; as a reforms and change expert with remarkable achievements
in team building, employee motivation, and strict adherence to service quality
and productivity.

Luguje
joined GPHA in 1999 after serving as a National Youth Intern with the
organization the previous year. During
his early days, he distinguished himself as a disciplined pacesetter and rose
to become Special Assistant to the Director General of GPHA about five years
after joining the organization.

He secured
his first high profile international job in 2007 as the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) Regional
Coordinator for West and Central Africa. IMO is the United Nations specialized agency
responsible for global regulation of shipping and maritime transport.

After five years with the IMO, he was elected as Secretary General of the Port
Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA) in 2012. PMAWCA is a sub-regional intergovernmental economic
organization, made up of 23 Regular Member Ports and 9 Associate Members
including landlocked countries and maritime organizations, all located along
the Western Atlantic Coast of the African continent, stretching from Mauritania
to Angola.

While on his
tour of duty at PMAWCA, he also served as Executive Secretary of the Pan African Association of
Port Cooperation (PAPC), the continental body for the three regional port
associations, from 2012 to 2017.

Luguje holds
an Executive MBA in Project and Strategic Management from the Paris Graduate
School of Management and Master
of Science in Maritime Affairs (Port Management
Specialization) from the World Maritime University (WMU), Malmo – Sweden. He is
also a Graduate of French and Linguistics, University of Ghana (Legon).

He has attended numerous professional training seminars and workshops on port
reforms, human resource management, performance indicators, concessions
management and project management.

As Secretary General of PMAWCA, Luguje engendered
greater vibrancy and prudency in the affairs of the Association. In 2017, he
mobilized member ports from the region to support the candidacy of Ms. Hadiza Bala Usman, Managing
Director of Nigerian Ports Authority, who became the first to be elected Vice President
(Africa Region) of the International Association of Ports and Habours (IAPH),
under its new constitution.

President of
PMAWCA and Chairman of Cape Verde’s Port Administration, Mr. Jorge Pimenta
Mauricio, in a communication to the chief executives of all regular and associate
Member Ports wrote: “As you will all agree with me, PMAWCA must be proud and
grateful to the President of the Republic of Ghana and his Government for this
appointment which is not only in recognition of Mr. Micheal Luguje’s
professional competence as an individual, but also an endorsement of PMAWCA as
a beacon of rich skills and competence in port management from which our
Governments can obtain the best experts to serve at the highest level in all
key areas of the port, logistics and maritime transport sector.

Over the
last six years of his stewardship as Secretary General, PMAWCA can attest to
Mr. Luguje’s professional competence, team spirit and dedication to producing
good results, which has repositioned our Association among the best
sub-regional port organizations in Africa and beyond. We therefore have no
doubt that he would be successful in his new role as Director General of the GPHA.

On behalf of
the Board of Directors, Council and members of the Association, I extend our
congratulations to Mr. Luguje on his appointment and wish him best success in
this new role of higher responsibility.”

Although his
notice of resignation has been formally received, the Association’s President
has requested Luguje to maintain general supervision over the work of the
PMAWCA Secretariat for the month of July so that the 39th PMAWCA
Council Meeting which will hold in Accra at the end of July could take a
decision on modalities to elect a new Secretary General.