Ivorian transporters welcome the reopening of land borders
Diverse travelers wait at the Ivory Coast-Ghana border on February 16, 2023, hours after it reopened.
The Ivorian authorities had closed its land borders on March 22, 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
AFP - SIA KAMBOU
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
Thursday, February 16, the land borders of Côte d'Ivoire were officially reopened.
They had been closed since March 22, 2020 to combat the spread of Covid-19.
For road hauliers, this is a huge relief.
Report at Bassam station in Abidjan.
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With our correspondent in Abidjan,
Marine Jeannin
They had been waiting for this news for three years.
At the Bassam station, on the side of the long-distance coaches which must serve the entire sub-region, it is not yet the effervescence.
But “
we are in ecstasy!
already exclaims Roger Assogba, local manager of the Ghanaian bus company STC, which has a hundred vehicles, ten of which operate in Abidjan:
“
Since the reopening of the borders
, we have been happy.
And we are in full activity to be able to put things back in place: to update the computers, the devices, the machines... There are also the buses which have been parked for a long time without being able to work, we have to do the overhaul, all that .
»
Because the logistics are heavy: nearly 300 transport companies have to resume service.
But Daouda Bamba, executive secretary general of the Union of Road Drivers of West Africa, Mauritania and Morocco (Ucrao), assures that all companies should be ready to resume operations this Monday, February 20:
“
The recovery is gradual.
Transport companies
are getting organized very quickly.
They are in the process of bidding to reemploy unemployed workers, who numbered almost 24,000, conductors and related workers at interstate stations.
»
The reopening will also put an end to illegal crossings of travelers at the border, which had never stopped since 2020.
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