The re­cent­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) is hop­ing to en­sure prop­er leg­is­la­tion is de­vel­oped to guide the in­dus­try go­ing for­ward.

Son­ja Voisin, who was elect­ed pres­i­dent on March 24 dur­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion’s an­nu­al meet­ing, has list­ed the de­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the T&T Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion Act as one of two key de­liv­er­ables she has iden­ti­fied for her 2023/2024 term.

In a re­lease, SATT said, “This act aims to es­tab­lish much-need­ed op­er­a­tional, com­mer­cial, and com­pet­i­tive stan­dards with­in the in­dus­try, bring­ing great ben­e­fit to stake­hold­ers and set­ting the stage for fur­ther de­vel­op­ment. The pro­posed act will pro­mote ef­fec­tive com­pe­ti­tion and eco­nom­ic ef­fi­cien­cy, pro­tect the in­ter­ests of con­sumers, pro­tect the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of ef­fi­cient sup­pli­ers, pro­mote the avail­abil­i­ty of reg­u­lat­ed ser­vices to all con­sumers, in­clud­ing low-in­come, rur­al, and dis­ad­van­taged con­sumers, and en­hance pub­lic knowl­edge, aware­ness, and un­der­stand­ing of the sec­tor. The ground­work for the draft­ing of this leg­is­la­tion has been com­plet­ed, and Ms Voisin will lead the stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion process to en­sure that all ben­e­fits are de­rived.”

Her oth­er fo­cus in what is her third stint as SATT pres­i­dent, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly served in 2005 and 2018, will be the prepa­ra­tions ahead of the host­ing of the Caribbean Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion’s 53rd an­nu­al meet­ing, con­fer­ence and ex­hi­bi­tion which is set to be held in Port-of-Spain from Oc­to­ber 23-24.

SATT said, “The con­fer­ence pro­motes crit­i­cal dis­cus­sions on all as­pects of ship­ping af­fect­ing the re­gion and pro­vides a plat­form for qual­i­ty net­work­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ty gen­er­a­tion. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400 de­ci­sion­mak­ers are ex­pect­ed to at­tend, and Ms Voisin has al­ready com­menced im­ple­ment­ing the im­per­a­tives to de­liv­er the best CSA con­fer­ence ever wit­nessed.”

Voisin re­placed Hay­den Al­leyne who served his max­i­mum of two con­sec­u­tive terms.

SATT al­so elect­ed vice pres­i­dent Shelly Balkissoon dur­ing its an­nu­al meet­ing.