Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of the ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies, Dr A Nor­man Sab­ga, was con­ferred with the Chan­cel­lor’s Award for Ex­cel­lence in Glob­al Busi­ness Lead­er­ship, while the ANSA McAL Group al­so re­ceived the Chan­cel­lor’s Award for Glob­al Busi­ness Ex­cel­lence, mark­ing a ma­jor mile­stone dur­ing the com­pa­ny’s 145th an­niver­sary year.

It came as the Amer­i­can Foun­da­tion for The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (AFUWI) host­ed its 29th An­nu­al “The Lega­cy Con­tin­ues” Awards Gala on Fri­day in New York City, bring­ing to­geth­er re­gion­al lead­ers, busi­ness ex­ec­u­tives and mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra to recog­nise con­tri­bu­tions to de­vel­op­ment and lead­er­ship.

The event be­gan with a re­cep­tion at 6 pm, fol­lowed by din­ner and the awards pro­gramme.

In re­marks at the cer­e­mo­ny, Sab­ga high­light­ed the long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Group and The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

“The ANSA McAL Group has had a very rich as­so­ci­a­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies over many, many years,” he said.

He point­ed to sev­er­al ini­tia­tives and his­tor­i­cal ties, in­clud­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of the Psy­cho­log­i­cal Re­search Cen­tre in Trinidad in 1989 and the recog­ni­tion re­ceived by his fa­ther.

“In 2004, my fa­ther, the late Dr An­tho­ny Sab­ga, re­ceived this very same award. Both he and I have been grant­ed hon­orary doc­tor­ates from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies,” Sab­ga said.

He added that the Group’s con­nec­tion to the in­sti­tu­tion ex­tend­ed through on­go­ing sup­port for aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment.

“So, we’ve had an ex­treme­ly rich as­so­ci­a­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. The An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Caribbean Awards—17 mem­bers of the aca­d­e­m­ic fra­ter­ni­ty of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies have been a re­cip­i­ent of these awards over the last 20 years,” he said.

Sab­ga al­so ac­knowl­edged the role of the com­pa­ny’s work­force in its achieve­ments, not­ing that the awards re­flect a col­lec­tive ef­fort across the re­gion.

“I ac­cept these awards on be­half of the 6,000 em­ploy­ees we have rep­re­sent­ing the 48 com­pa­nies in eight coun­tries across the Caribbean,” he said.

“No man is an is­land. And I could not have achieved what I have done with­out the help of very dy­nam­ic teams, very ca­pa­ble mem­bers of staff, and I thank each and every mem­ber of ANSA McAL for their con­tri­bu­tion in mak­ing our group the suc­cess that it is to­day.”

Mean­while, Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter Dr An­drew Hol­ness was pre­sent­ed with a Lega­cy Award at the gala.

In his ad­dress, Hol­ness un­der­scored the role of uni­ver­si­ties in na­tion­al and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment, call­ing for changes in how so­ci­eties ap­proach growth and gov­er­nance.

“We need a pro-growth cul­ture in our so­ci­eties and that will come from tak­ing more de­lib­er­ate po­si­tions in de­vel­op­ing new tech­nolo­gies, in tak­ing po­si­tions on how we man­age risks,” he said.

Hol­ness al­so em­pha­sised the need for im­proved sys­tems and in­no­va­tion.

“We need a new cul­ture on ef­fi­cien­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly ef­fi­cient bu­reau­cra­cy. We need a new cul­ture of in­no­va­tion in our so­ci­eties, and a crit­i­cal part­ner in de­vel­op­ing this cul­tur­al rev­o­lu­tion would be our uni­ver­si­ty,” he said.

The an­nu­al AFUWI gala serves as a plat­form to ho­n­our Caribbean ex­cel­lence while rais­ing funds to sup­port schol­ar­ships and de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives at UWI, re­in­forc­ing the in­sti­tu­tion’s role in ad­vanc­ing ed­u­ca­tion and lead­er­ship across the re­gion.