Douala Port Access Tightened For Truckers

Douala Port Access Tightened For Truckers

By Ntaryike Divine Jr. in Douala

Cargo trucks and other merchandise haulers entering the Douala seaport are coming under more stringent controls since the start of April 2011.  The meticulous filtration follows a decision by the port administrators to reinforce a 1985 law policing the technical and administrative conditions of vehicles accessing the country’s largest maritime shipping facility.

Since 2 April, the port’s two main gateways are manned by mixed squads of police, gendarmes, hired guards and ports control supervisors.  Their task is to meticulously verify that vehicles entering the port comply with regulations which entail having tires in excellent condition, fire extinguishers, faultless lighting systems, container locks, as well as indisputable admission authorizations.

Officials enacting the resurrected controls say soaring accidents and lackadaisical enforcement of the ISPS [International Ship and Port Security] code in recent years imply that the port, which handles over 90 percent of Cameroon's external trade, faces increasing risks of being blacklisted.  “That would mean that shippers would be advised to avoid the Douala port because of security lapses, and you can imagine how much that will cost the economy,” Nembot Jean Christophe, representing the Douala Port Commander told reporters during an acquaintance field trip Friday.

Estimates show that over 200 cargo trucks access the port daily [at it south gate].  Before the decision to reinforce the regulations, a sizeable fraction of that number usually ended up stranded within the port premises for lack of clearance documents.  According to Ndoumbe Ngosso, a supervisor, traffic fluidity was severely hampered, provoking avoidable accidents, falling containers and uncalled-for delays.  “But since the start of the month, about 97 percent of incoming vehicles are complying with the measures,” He said. 

Indirectly, that implies 3 percent of trucks entering the port lack the right to do so – a clear hint of lingering corruption.  “That’s a tricky question.  But we are not concentrating our efforts on combating corruption which may be hard to prove.  We are rather dissuading corruption by inflict heavy sanctions on defaulters,” Ngosso explained.  Truck drivers caught without requisite authorizations within the port are fined anything from FCFA 50.000 – 100.000 and risk jail terms that can span 5 months to 10 years and even more.  Those involved in accidents that wreck installations are obliged to repair the damages as well as pay a fine.

Meantime, the port authority is installing a video surveillance system to eventually take over the manual control.  In fact, a team of the port supervisors left the country for the US at the weekend to gain hands-on experience in enforcing security.

Transport and merchandise transit unionists are welcoming the controls with reservations.  “For the moment, we don’t have problems with the controls.  All we are insisting on is that the law be obligatory for everybody.  We held several meetings with Mr Dayas Mounoume, [the general manager of the Ports Authority of Douala] and we told him flatly that things will begin to go wrong when high-profile individuals in the government begin to call to have their trucks without the required papers go into the port,” a transport sector trade unionists, opting for anonymity warned.