THE ROLE OF STAKEHOLDERS IN FIGHTING CORRUPTION ALONG THE TEMA-OUAGADOUGOU TRADE CORRIDOR
Bribery, corruption and delays have long been endemic for commercial transport on the Tema-
Ougadougou corridor. The trunk road from Ghana's port to Burkina Faso's capital passes
through Kumasi and Tamale, and carries the vast majority of goods destined to the north of the
country as well as a great deal of the materials bound for Burkina Faso and Mali. As such, the
trunk road makes for a tempting target to officials and semi-officials of all stripes eager to
supplement their incomes by skimming a little cash from the truckers moving their cargoes along
the route.
The trunk road is the only economical route for transporting goods into the interior, and truckers
have little choice but to use it despite the delays and bribes they are forced to pay. The most
recent report from Improved Road Transport Governance (IRTG) initiative found that during the
second quarter of 2009, the average truck making the 1,057 km journey from Tema to
Ougadougou encountered approximately twenty-four checkpoints, paid almost GH¢100 in
bribes, and were delayed over five hours as a result. On any given day the number of trucks
plying the route can reach 120, therefore, the total amount in bribes collected can reach
GH¢12,000 per day, GH¢84,000 per week, GH¢360,000 per month and GH¢ 4,380,000 per year.
The cost of these bribes and delays are passed from the driver to the truck operator to the
shopkeeper to the consumer – what begins with a corrupt official taking a few extra Ghana cedis
from trucks passing his patch of the trunk road ends with millions of people paying inflated
prices they can ill afford for essential goods. Sadly, the number and amount of bribes per voyage
during the second quarter of 2009 has increased markedly over the first quarter.
Trade route corruption is a complex and multifaceted problem whose causes and solutions
involve many stakeholders, some of whom are on both sides of the issue. It is essential for
Ghanaians to understand which stakeholders are responsible for perpetuating the corruption on
the trunk road, and which stakeholders are responsible for eliminating it, in order to focus the
efforts of civil society on holding these parties accountable.
Who, exactly, is collecting these bribes? According to the IRTG, the largest bribe-taking group
on the trunk road in Ghana is composed of the agents who operate the tollbooths and axle-load
weighbridges, followed closely by Customs agents and Police officers. These agents are under
the auspices of the Ghana Highway Authority (part of the Ministry of Transportation); the Ghana
Customs, Excise and Preventive Service; and the Ghana Police Service, respectively.
These groups have a collective mandate to ensure that commercial transport of goods for export
over the trunk road is safe, audited and properly taxed. However, a lack of accountability within
each group's command structure and between the agencies has allowed their agents to take
advantage of their station and extract more money from truckers than the law permits.
The corruption along the trunk routes in Ghana, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, is one of
the reasons why West Africa has the most expensive shipping costs in the world. In order to
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begin tackling this problem, ECOWAS and UEMOA partnered in 2005 with West African Trade
Hub (a USAID-sponsored trade project) to create the IRTG. The IRTG began studying
corruption patterns along the major West African trade routes in 2006. The IRTG published its
first major study on the frequency, size and type of bribes along several trade routes, including
Tema-Ouagadougou, in 2007. The report is now in its 8th edition, and provides a non-partisan
and detailed catalogue of incidences of trade route corruption from the past three years.
With the dataset available on the Internet to all parties, the origins, size and scope of the trade
route corruption problem have been laid bare. The important questions to ask now are: which
stakeholders must play a role in abolishing trade route corruption, and what steps might they take
to do so?
The IRTG initiative was commissioned in part by ECOWAS, but that is not the extent of the
organization's responsibility in this area. The ECOWAS treaty contains articles that promote the
regularization of trade procedures between its constituent nations, culminating in the
establishment of a free trade area in the region. The treaty mandates that each Member State
(including Ghana) “grant full and unrestricted freedom of transit through its territory for goods
proceeding to or from a third country...and such transit shall not be subject to any discrimination,
quantitative restrictions, duties or other charges.” These principles are echoed in the ECOWAS
Protocol on Free Movement of People.
As a signatory to the treaty, Ghana – along with all of the other ECOWAS member states studied
by the IRTG – is in breach of its duties. While the treaty lists certain exceptions to “full and
unrestricted freedom of transit,” none include allowing highway, customs and police agents to
take bribes in exchange for passage on the trunk route.
Ultimately, since ECOWAS cannot itself discipline agents along Ghana's trunk route or rewrite
Ghana's laws to decrease the likelihood of trade route corruption, it is up to Ghana to solve the
trade route corruption problem and comply with its treaty obligations. However, ECOWAS's
leadership has faltered, evinced by its failure to implement the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation
Scheme among the member states almost twenty years after ratification. If ECOWAS were to
succeed in removing tariffs on goods transferred between its member states, then the
opportunities for customs officials to extort bribes would be drastically diminished.
Many stakeholders in Ghana can rightly share in the blame for the increasing frequency and size
of bribes taken on the trunk road. Clearly, the Ghana Highway Authority, the Ghana Custom,
Excise and Preventive Service, and the Ghana Police Service are guilty of at least implicitly
allowing their agents to carry on this illegal practice. Given that detailed information about who
takes these bribes has been publicly available for years, these services have had ample time to
rectify the conduct of their officers and have failed to do so.
However, the Police, Customs and Highway authorities do not operate in a vacuum. The Police
Council, which advises and supervises the police and reports to the President, must play a role in
decreasing the corruption that plagues the Ghana Police Authority nationwide. The Ghana
Highway Authority operates under the Ministry of Transportation, whose developmental mission
includes ensuring that transport over Ghana's trade route system meets international
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accountability standards. The Ghana Customs, Excise and Preventive Service operates as an
independent agency under the law and, as a result, avoids traditional accountability measures like
chain-of-command oversight.
Aside from these core agencies and their supervisory bodies, many government agencies have a
role to play in reducing trade route corruption. Any government agency with an interest in
economic growth through efficient trade, fair pricing for consumers and positive relations with
neighboring countries should pressure the President to act more forcefully on this issue. Such
agencies might include the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Finance.
In addition to these Ministries, trade associations like the Ghana Shippers' Council, unions such
as the GPRTU and PROTOA, civil society organisations and consumer groups can lobby
Parliamentarians to implement and enforce efforts aimed at curbing trade route corruption.
Finally, the media play an important role in publicising corrupt practices and exposing their
practitioners to the public.
There are a number of policy changes that the appropriate ministries and agencies could
implement to decrease bribe-taking on the trunk road. For example, customs agents, police
officers, and weighbridge and toll attendants could provide receipts containing the date, time,
purpose, fees and other details associated with each inspection. They can provide them both to
the driver and to their central offices. Paper trails like these can help introduce accountability
into an otherwise opaque system.
Another strategy would be to create complaint mechanisms and legal remedies for victims forced
to pay bribes along the trade routes. At the least, this would expose the identities of the
wrongdoers for public consumption.
Whatever solutions are employed, Ghana must eliminate trade route corruption in order to
comply with agency regulations, national law, ECOWAS treaty obligations, and international
standards of trade practices and consumer protection. Every bribe no longer taken along the
trunk road is a step toward a prosperous and equitable future for Ghana.
Signed
Legal Resources Centre
Development / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com