BusinessDay... the voice of business: W/Africa most expensive road transport route for business   —study

W/Africa most expensive road transport route for business   —study
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Godwin NNANNA on 27 January, 2008 08:00:00
 
WATH, a regional trade facilitator established by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), says the elimination of corruption at the
borders is critical to the success of the economic integration aspirations of
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The unofficial payments, WATH noted, most times cost more than what traders pay
to the official sources.  West Africa, the agency maintains, has the least
efficient trucking in the world due to delays at numerous road check-points and
border posts as a result of bribe-taking by uniformed officers such as the
police, customs and immigration officials as well as gendarmes.
“West Africa has the most expensive, least efficient road transport in the
world. Reasons include the high costs of inputs and taxation, low capacity use,
overloaded vehicles running on degraded roads, and a surfeit of old, dilapidated
trucks operating when they should be retired from the fleet.
“Another source of high costs is road barriers, set up mostly by
law-enforcement agents to exact bribes from truckers. Bribery and delays also
occur at border crossings, where officials may exploit the need to redo
paperwork for cargo as part of the transition from one country to the next”
According to recently released WATH on “improved road transport governance
report” which examined impediments to free trade in Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali
and Ghana, “Togolese uniformed services take the least bribes ($3.33 or
G¢3.10), followed by their Ghanaian counterparts ($4.17 or G¢3.88). In
Burkina Faso, the figures is $8.73 or G¢8.13. Mali’s figures are the worst:
$25.09 or G¢23.36.
Regarding the uniformed services, the Malian police ($11.50 or G¢10.70) and
the Burkinabe customs ($3.70 - $6.80 or G¢3.44 - G¢6.33, depending on the
route) take the highest bribes.”
The report reveasl that another source of high cost are the numerous road
barriers that enable law enforcement agents to exact bribes from truckers
through threats of extended delays if the bribe is not paid.
However, the study appears to have failed to make some other useful links.
First, over-reliance on road transport, especially the near absence of rail
transport, and, secondly, the very loosely regulated commercial transport
sector, are often cited as major reasons for the high cost of travel in West
Africa.
The objectives of the study, among other things, are to quantify the cost of
bribes and delays in West African trucking, and focusing debate on the
commercial losses they precipitate in order to reduce them.
The data collected and fed into the system will allow quarterly updates on
bribes and delays by routes in each direction, country, branch of government,
type of vehicle and changes in these over time.
The priority IRTG corridors comprise Tema-Ouagadougou-Bamako,
Lome-Ouagadougou-Niamey, Cotonou-Niamey, Niamey-Ouagadougou, and
Lagos-Cotonou-Lome-Accra.