Pursuing Professional Options: Liberia’s Maritime Chief Steps Down

Monrovia – Binyah Kesselly has left the Liberia Maritime Commission after eight consecutive years as Commissioner of that entity following his request to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf expressing his desire to pursue other professional options.

A statement from the Executive Mansion indicated that the President has accepted the request from Kesselly.

“President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has accepted the request of the Commissioner/Chief Executive Officer of the Liberia Maritime Authority, Honorable Binyah Kesselly to move on in his professional pursuit after eight years of service as head of the then Liberia Maritime Commission and the now Liberia Maritime Authority”, the Executive Mansion stated.

According to the statement, Commissioner Kesselly informed President Sirleaf that after eight consecutive years of service as head of the Maritime entity, he will like to pursue other professional options.

During Kesselly’s tenure at the Maritime, he reported progress that led to increase in the number of vessels operating under the Liberian registry.

Speaking as guest of Maritime Port Authority of Singapore’s Distinguished Visitors Programme, in June 2015, Commissioner Kesselly said even during the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, both the air and seaports remained fully functional throughout the crisis although there were significant reductions in personnel, commercial passenger and non-relief cargo movement with zero Ebola cases reported at the nation’s seaports.

The commissioner further explained that throughout the outbreak, there was an uninterrupted vessel traffic resulting in record-setting 7,452,492 metric tons of cargo handled, 13% higher than the previous year.

Vessel traffic, according to the commissioner also increased by 12.78% with a further 25.37% increase in Summer Deadweight (SWDT);23.78% increase in Net Register Tonnage (NRT), a 1390% increase in throughputs and conservative 1% increase in operating revenue.

Mr.  Andrew Tan, Chief Executive Officer of the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore said the Commissioner Kesselly’s visit to Singapore offered at opportunity for Singapore to get a first-hand experience of how Liberia handled the crisis and how Singapore can learn from Liberia’s examples, missteps and enormous challenges.

Under his reign Liberia was competing with countries such as Panama, a small nation of just three million, that has the largest shipping fleet in the world with 8,600 ships flying the Panamanian flag, followed by Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Hong Kong and Singapore.