Transport Minister says apart from Yassa, Bertoua and Ngaoundere, the others are illegal.

The Minister of Transport, Robert Nkili has made it clear that there are only three official checkpoints for vehicles plying the Douala-Ngaoundere-N’Djamena highway. These are Yassa in the Littoral, Bertoua in the East and Ngaoundere in the Adamawa Regions. Any other checkpoint, he said, is tantamount to encouraging corruption which government will not tolerate.

In an interview with CRTV radio last Friday April 20, Prof. Nkili noted that the move is to curb incessant corruption perpetuated on the road by people who pass for controllers and extort huge sums of money from motorists. “We have been told that at one point there were 146 checkpoints on the highway. This is corruption,” he said. He added that the Secretary of State in charge of the Gendarmerie is working tooth and nail, carrying out impromptu visits to the field to ensure that the malpractices stop and also through the putting in place of a “Road Brigade.”

The Minister’s stern warning came barely two weeks after he chaired an international workshop in Yaounde of road and trade stakeholders in the Central African sub-region at which proposals were made for boosting the transportation and transit of goods. The meeting also discussed how to surmount hindrances to inter-State trade within the sub-region. Like Robert Nkili, participants at the workshop were unanimous that safety in road transport, its sustainability as well as vibrant trade are indispensable both for sub-regional integration and the emergence of its economies.

Unfortunately, these have been greatly jeopardised by the illegal checkpoints as well as other anomalies on the highway. There was agreement on the fact that adopting a unique international control license, sensitising road users on best practices so as to limit prevailing corruption on the roads as well as limiting check-points would be a great step to in improving movements on the highway.