Sub regional trade: Corridors still a cause for concern
Quite unexpected, truckers implicated in the difficulties faced by their employers, who are key foreign trade actors when it comes to transport to the hinterland. According to the Cameroon Ambassador to Chad, H.E.Sanda Oumarou, some drivers are feeding fat from the so-called "road charges," a good part of which goes into their pockets and they argue that it is being used to bribe their way along the Douala-Bangui or Douala-N'Djamena corridors.
"The conscience of the drivers must (...) be challenged," said the diplomat who led the Cameroonian delegation yesterday, 12 December to N'Djamena, at the opening of the 2nd RCA-Chad-Cameroon tripartite forum on the facilitation of goods transit through ports and road corridors in Cameroon.
That said, the drivers implicated are only benefiting from a persistent practice namely police harassment as recalled by various actors at the opening of the forum that is scheduled to end on 14 December: The same problem had already been raised during the first edition of this forum that held in Yaounde 2012. Although actors admit that there has been progress namely collaboration between customs services, the dematerialisation of foreign trade procedures and others, there are still some causes for concern.
In addition to corruption, the Ambassador cited difficulties of access to the port, red tape, the issue of spaces set aside for truckers, Single Window connectivity problems, difficulties related to the respect of price lists of various countries and so on.
The list of worries is so long that the Secretary General at the Chadian Ministry of Infrastructure and Disengagement, Bandoh Elvam, urged participants to seek "appropriate and lasting" solutions thereto, stressing that the economic health and "commercial competitiveness" of the three states depended on it.
It is noteworthy that there are already hotlines that foreign trade players can call in the event of abuse.
(Source/ Cameroon Tribune No. 11494 of 13 December 2017)