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The Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA) Ghana Africa Conference has ended in Takoradi with a call on government to take advantage of the oil boom in the country by establishing an all purpose university to focus on oil and gas.
The fifth WISTA Africa conference, which was focused on challenging women to play an active role for the rapid growth of the maritime and oil/gas industry, noted that the establishment of a university would make Ghana the hub of petrochemical education in the region.
Addressing the WISTA at the opening of the three – day conference, Joyce Bawa Mogtari, the Deputy Minister of Transport, appealed to for more women to participate in the sector.
In a speech read for him the Western Regional Minister, Paul Evans Aidoo, expressed government’s commitment to create jobs in the oil and gas industry to fulfill the local content requirement.
Aidoo urged members of the WISTA to ensure transparency and accountability for the sustainability of the association.
Naa Densua Aryeetey, President of the WISTA, said the association was an umbrella organization of women involved in maritime transportation business and related trades worldwide.
It aims to promote roles of members and raising the level of awareness about the industry and also to correct the worldwide perception that the maritime and oil/gas industries are male dominated.
Aryeetey noted that few African women had ventured into oil/gas sector hardly knowing the opportunities that are available to them.
She said maritime transport could become the mainstay of a nation’s economy as it contributed to about 70 percent of the value of the world’s trade.
“There is the need for the government to turn its attention to the industry,” she said.
Source: cajnewsafrica
