NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (September 26, 2022) — The Nevis Air and Sea Ports Authority (NASPA) emerged winner among other regional competing ports for the 2022 Novaport Cup Award for “Most Improved Performance.”
Following the announcement at the Port Management Association of the Caribbean (PMAC) Virtual 25th Annual General Meeting from September 14-15, 2022, an elated Mr. Oral Brandy, General Manager of NASPA, told the Department of Information, the authority is a proud winner.
“The Nevis Air and Sea Ports Authority is once again the proud winner of the Novaport Award…The award was presented based on the improvement in efficiency over a period compared to other ports in the region.
“This is the second time that NASPA would have been awarded this cup/trophy. The first time, it was in 2005. This assessment really has to do with the way the ports are able to use their resources over a period of time compared to the previous period,” he said.
Mr. Brandy applauded the staff’s efforts in capturing the award.
“On behalf of the Board of NASPA and management, I want to thank the staff in general for their hard work. They have been very dedicated and they have exerted tremendous effort, even through challenging times. Winning this cup really speaks to the effort that they have exerted over the years…
“I want to thank the staff for their hard work, thank them for being there and working the best they could, even with limited resources and so this cup really speaks to their dedication and their commitment to the work,” he said.
The NASPA General Manager explained that there were a number of factors considered for the selection of the winner.
“One has to do with the volume of cargo or throughput…and so it’s important that we can attract as much cargo as possible to Nevis. But even when the cargo arrives, we have to make sure that we can handle the cargo in an efficient way with minimum staff and so the number of staff that we use to have the operation done is critical.
“It’s also important that we use as little revenue as possible, that we incur minimum expenses in order to have this efficiency. Over the past year, we have tried to keep expenses down as much as possible and even our staff, it has not grown much and so factors like these were taken into consideration in deciding or assessing the winner of this cup.
“One other factor that was taken into consideration is the revenue earned using minimum expenses and minimum staff and so putting all these together indeed helped us to be able to have this achievement,” he said.
The runner-up ports for 2022 are Montserrat Port Authority in second place, while Grand Port Maritime De La Guyane emerged third. The Ports Authority of the Turks and Caicos Islands won the award in 2021.