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Cameroon truckers strike to protest bribe-seeking 'official' checkpoints

CAMEROONIAN truck drivers supplying N'Djamena, the capital of Chad and Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, plan to strike from February 18 to protest at illicit checkpoints set up by bribe-seeking police and customs officers.

There are considerably more checkpoints along the two corridors to Chad and Central African Republic than the seven agreed on, said Ibrahima Yaya, president of the Cameroon National Union of Professional Drivers.

"They don't let us through if we refuse to pay a bribe," he said, reported Bloomberg News.

Landlocked Chad relies on Cameroon's port of Douala for about 90 per cent of its imports, including cement and machinery, according to data from the Cameroon Customs Department.

An average of 900 trucks per week travel the 1,850-kilometre (1,150-mile) road to N'Djamena, according to the union.

Central African Republic, which is also landlocked, gets 80 per cent of its imports via a 1,500-kilometre corridor linking the port to the capital, Bangui, according to the Central African Road Freight Board.

Officials at the Chadian border systematically demand a tax of CFA46,000 (US$78) in addition to between CFA5,000 and CFA10,000 drivers are asked to pay at each of the more than 20 illicit check points, according to trucker Abdourahman Bouba.

"We can neither confirm nor refute the allegations until we undertake field trips," said El Hadj Oumarou, director of the Cameroon Overland Freight Management Office.