SUNS  4291 Wednesday 30 September 1998

Ouagadougou, Sep 28 (IPS/Brahima Ouedraogo) -- Truckers who travel through Cote d'Ivoire say there is a checkpoint on average every 20 to 25 kms along the road from the northern border to the capital and they are forced to part with some money at each of them. Road travellers between Nigeria and Ghana also complain of problems such as delays at border posts and bribe-seeking police.

The free movement of goods and persons is one of the guiding principles of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) but some member countries have not been following that principle, according to a memorandum from the ECOWAS Secretariat.

On one hand, trade and migration between some West African states is facilitated by the fact that they are close to one another - the distance from Lagos to Cotonou, Lome, Accra and then Abidjan is under 1,000 kms - and by the fact that the region's road networks are well developed.

On the other hand, some countries deliberately impede free movement on their roads.

Road transporters from Burkina Faso, for example, accuse Cote d'Ivoire of violating the principle of free movement within ECOWAS. "We are still subjected to the law of the jungle by Ivoirian policemen, gendarmes and customs officials," said trucker Adama Tiemtore. "They have been putting up more and more checkpoints and they deliberately increase the taxes."

In October 1997, truckers from Mali, Niger, Ghana and Burkina Faso protested against the hassles they undergo in Cote d'Ivoire by blocking the bridge at the border point of Leraba between Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso for 72 hours. The truckers complained that there were 43 checkpoints between Leraba and the Ivoirian capital, Abidjan, a distance of less than 1,000 kms. They charged that they had to pay about 26,000 CFA francs (some 50 U.S. dollars) in bribes or for using parking lots, some of which had no adequate sanitary facilities.

In Niger, a tax of 30,000 CFA (about 60 dollars) is levied on each foreign vehicle transporting goods, according to a report by the Union of West African Transporters (UTRAO). UTRAO added that there were many checkpoints on roads in the landlocked nation and that officials there "treat foreign truckers very badly".

According to Djibril Tall, head of the road and railway traffic network in Mali, the customs and other measures taken by some ECOWAS countries stem from the fragility of their economies.

"There are difficulties linked to the nature of our economies and to the security aspect which prevent the free movement of persons and goods," Tall explained. "Cote d'Ivoire, for example, uses the police to avoid goods being dumped in the country," he said.

Col. Kassarate Tiape, a member of the Ivoirian delegation at an ECOWAS consultative meeting held here in mid-September, said all the measures taken by the Ivoirian authorities along the country's roads were linked to security problems.

The Ouagadougou meeting, aimed at improving trade relations and eliminating the obstacles that block regional economic integration, was attended by seven of the 16 ECOWAS countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Togo.

The other members of the regional grouping are Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea (Conakry), Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

Participants in the meeting recommended that the officials who carry out checks along the community's roads should have identity badges and that each country should distribute a list of all documents it requires of transporters.

The meeting followed a similar one held in June 1996 in Cotonou for the countries of the 'Lagos-Accra axis': Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana.

These meetings are aimed at helping ECOWAS to meet its January 1999 deadline for implementing a system for the transport of goods by road from state to state, and a Protocol on the Free Circulation of Resources, as well as the right to residence throughout ECOWAS of all ECOWAS nationals.

"All roads and railways in the community must now serve the integration of our peoples, of our economies for a harmonious development of the sub-region so that the ECOWAS states can be present on the international scene," Hounkpatin Gilles, director of ECOWAS' Department of Customs, told IPS.

"The ECOWAS citizen must feel as much at home in Burkina as in Cote d'Ivoire or Ghana," added Hounkpatin, who said the many checkpoints of all types - which encourage the extortion to which road users are subjected - should be abolished.
  
The Ouagadougou meeting also called on states to make it easier for ECOWAS nationals to reside in any nation of the region by simplifying procedures for obtaining residence permits and by reducing their cost, which ranges from 5,000 to 15,000 CFA (about 10 to 30 dollars) according to the country.

Burkinabe president Blaise Compaore said recently that "real economic integration presupposes the disappearance of residence permits or at least changes in their formulation".
  
The idea of an ECOWAS passport, which would facilitate travel within the region, has also been under consideration by the grouping for some time now.