Ghana continues to show the lowest level of bribe-taking along the sub-region’s primary road corridors, an official report has disclosed.
This was contained in the 14th report of the Improved Road Transport Governance (IRTG) initiative which seeks to institute good road governance along primary road corridors.
The initiative monitors and reports on the check points, the length of days, and the value of bribes drivers pay when hauling goods along the Tema – Ouagadougou, Ouagadougou – Bamako, Lome – Ouagadougou, Bamako – Dakar, Abidjan – Ouagadougou, and Abidjan – Bamako corridors.
The report showed that the average number of controls per 100 km is two, while the average bribe per 100 km varies between $ 2.18 in Ghana and $13. 96 in Cote d’Ivoire. The average time of delays per 100 km vary between 14 minutes in Togo and Ghana up to 28 minutes in Senegal.
While Cote d’Ivoire topped the list with US$13.96 collected per every 100 kilometers with the Forces Nouvelles accounting for US$11.76 of the amount, the police accounting for US$ 0.81, the Gendarmerie taking US$0.54 and others accounting for US$0.46, Ghana recorded US$2.18 with the police taking US$1.19 of the amount, Customs taking US$0.86 and Immigration taking US$ 0.13.
However, the Tema-Ouagadougou corridor ranked the lowest among the six corridors collecting an average of US$3.70 per 100km or US$39.12 per truck for the entire corridor.
Among the six countries covered, Cote d’Ivoire collects the highest amount of bribes followed by Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana.
In terms of delays, the Bamako – Dakar corridor leads with an average of 30 minutes lost per 100 km for a total delay of 7 hours 21 minutes throughout the entire corridor.
The corridor Abidjan – Bamako has the lowest delays with an average of 15 minutes per 100 km.
Among the six countries covered, Senegal has the highest delays followed by Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo.
The last quarter of last year which is the period under review ended with a 2.5 % increase in controls, a 3.1% increase in bribes, and a 74% increase in delays in comparison with the previous quarter on the six main corridors covered by IRTG.
Road harassment on interstates corridors across West Africa costs states tens of thousands of US dollars a month obstructing the path to sustainable economic growth.
The report stated, “the extent of road harassment on West African trade routes is staggering and its impacts are harmful for national and sub-regional economies.” The data analyzed was collected by legal truck drivers in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Togo.
The persistence of road harassment on the various corridors underlines the inadequacy of current efforts by the current ECOWAS Trade Liberalizations Scheme.
The IRTG project is an ECOWAS and UNEMOA initiative established in 2005 with technical and financial support of USAID’s West Africa Trade Hub and with financial support from the World Bank’s Transport Policy Program in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSATP).
The IRTG project asks West African states to take action in reducing road harassment on their main corridors to achieve good road governance for sustainable economic development.
Source: B&FT
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