Kaolack, Jul 20 (APS) – The Ministry of Infrastructure, Land Transport and Opening up on Wednesday began an awareness caravan aimed at enforcing good practices in transit and transport on the Dakar-Bamako corridor.
This caravan is organized in concert with Malian transport players, trade unionists and defense and security forces.
“We are here for an awareness-raising mission on the Dakar-Bamako corridor. This mission is called upon to raise awareness among all transport stakeholders on all good practices in transport and transit”, explained the head of the urban and international interurban transport division at the Road Transport Department, Cheikh Bâ.
According to Cheikh Bâ, this mission is part of the progress of the activities of the Support Program for Governance in the Transport Sector (PAGOTRANS).
It “aims to raise awareness among stakeholders on compliance with transport regulations, in particular on national texts, on agreements between Senegal and Mali and on community texts of WAEMU and ECOWAS on transport”, said he told reporters.
The delegation from the Ministry of Infrastructure plans to meet transporters, drivers as well as authorities from the defense and security forces – gendarmerie, police, customs and water and forest agents – to raise their awareness of good practices in terms of transport and transit, particularly on the Dakar-Bamako corridor.
“We want to make the authorities in charge of transport control aware of the need to reduce road hassles and to advocate with the authorities for the application of the ECOWAS green card”, added Cheikh Bâ, in the presence in particular of the head of the statistics department. Warehouses from Mali to Senegal, Mamadou Diawara.
There was also the Secretary General of the Union of Road Transporters of Senegal and representative of the unitary framework of road transport unions in Senegal, Gora Khouma, the road expert Malang Faty, as well as representatives of the defense and security forces.
The road expert Malang Faty for his part pointed out that this sensitization is generally part of the activities of the Observatory of Abnormal Practices (OPA).
“This is a provision that is made at the level of the UEMOA commission, where I served for more than ten years”, he said, recalling that this Observatory “covers all the UEMOA countries where there are more than ten corridors which are concerned, including that of Dakar-Bamako”.
The Abnormal Practices Observatory “aims at three objectives”, he says, citing “the reduction of indicators related to the number of checkpoints that are on this corridor”.
Another targeted indicator consists of determining the time spent on each control point and that of illicit collections.
“We want to talk to everything related to this corridor to make traffic more fluid. Not only are we raising awareness about their behavior”, but at the same time it is a question of “seeing how we can do so that we can reduce the overload on this corridor”, indicated Malang Faty.
“A corridor is a road infrastructure whose point of departure and arrival must be the best. More than 450 vehicles drive on the Dakar-Bamako corridor per day. Our participation in this mission will make it possible to raise awareness among all actors, including Malian drivers, in order to make them understand the role they must play for the fluidity of transport while respecting the standards”, underlined the head of the statistical service of the Warehouses of Mali in Senegal, Mamadou Diawara.
The Secretary General of the Union of Senegalese Truck Drivers, Gora Khouma, invited drivers to respect the directives of the Highway Code and pleaded for the establishment, along the corridor, of mixed checkpoints instead of instead of a reduction in checkpoints.