Poor transport infrastructures have made Africans to travel under unsafe and inhuman conditions.

Gaping potholes, many official and unofficial checkpoints and miles and miles of uneven or unpaved dirt roads--this is the scene for motorists along part of the 2,000-kilometer stretch that connects the Douala Port in western CameroonÊto the country’s landlocked neighbors in N’Djamena, ChadÊand Bangui in the Central African Republic, reported the World Bank.
The corridor, known as one of Africa’s worst for shippers struggling to get their goods to and from international markets, has hampered trade for thousands and is a substantial toll on the price of doing business regionally. The predicament is in sharp contrast to some parts of Africa where infrastructure projects have improved regional transportation.

Hampering Trade
“The current conditions are just deplorable. Our nightmare begins either in Douala, Cameroon, or in my country,“ said Abdoulaye Dembele, a timber truck driver from the Central African Republic. “It is a real battlefield. Road conditions will worsen during the rainy season and there will be more accidents.“
Paul Aime Toukam, a Cameroonian transport operator, owns trucks traveling along the Douala-Bangui corridor. He said it takes courage to get his trucks from the port to Bangui.Ê
The government installs rain barriers during the rainy season to prevent loaded trucks from causing irreversible damage.
To travel to N’Djamena from the region’s main port in Douala along a stretch of country that bounds equatorial forests in Cameroon with desert-like conditions in Chad can take between 10 and 28 days, according to Jean-Francois Marteau, head of a new project at the World Bank focused on enhancing trade by repairing the damaged infrastructure along this route and by reducing logistical delays in the port and the inland platforms.
The trip spans all kinds of climates and involves challenges to travel including roadblocks, heavy traffic, poorly managed border crossings and even areas such as the one-lane bridge between Chad and Cameroon where the processing of livestock several times per week takes precedence over the passing through traffic.

New Projects
To combat this problem, the World Bank, in partnership with the European Union, the African Development Bankand the French Development Agency, will pour $680 million (WB funding is $201 million) into three countries--Chad, Cameroon and Central African Republic.
Part of the funds will finance the paving of 450-kilometer, two-lane highways in Cameroon and the Central African Republic as well as the rehabilitation of another 400 kilometers of road in Chad and 400 kilometers in Cameroon. Other money will go toward providing technical assistance and computerizing systems at the Douala Port to help implement an effective community-based system which would cut by 20 percent the port clearance delays.
Customs administrations will also be supported in the three countries to implement fully electronic clearance processes, which would help tackle corruption. Finally, funds will address gaps in the rehabilitation of the Cameroonian rail network, the preferred mode for Chad imports and CAR’s timber exports.

High Transportation Costs
A major consequence of having a poorly managed system in the three countries being funded has been skyrocketing costs. Transportation costs in central Africa are among the highest on the continent, according to research done in preparation for the Transport and Transit Facilitation project as it is called. For Chad and the Central African Republic, transit costs represent 52 percent and 33 percent of the value of exports respectively.
While project leaders acknowledge that the efforts will open up trade for the region beyond commodity exports and will contribute to gains in the economy, they also foresee challenges for operators who have become used to the current situation, especially on the facilitation side.
The Transport and Transit Facilitation projectÊis expected to begin in early 2008 and will take five years to complete.

The Government of India’s announcement of a package of concessions for exporters was widely anticipated, especially with the recent appreciation of the rupee becoming politically sensitive.
According to Hindu.com, since April, the rupee has appreciated by about 8 percent, from a level of Rs.44 to the dollar to its present trading range of Rs.40 to Rs.41. Exporters and their trade associations were complaining that their competitiveness was being eroded by the dearer rupee.
Particularly vulnerable are the small- and medium-sized export enterprises. There is a distinct possibility of widespread job losses. Already, there are reports of many diamond cutting and polishing units in Surat closing shop. Many export-oriented industries, including textiles, are labor intensive. The real question, therefore, was not whether such a package would be forthcoming but what would be its magnitude and content.
The Rs.1400 crore-package has two broad relief components--interest cost on bank loans and duty drawbacks. Export credit, both pre-shipment and post-shipment, will be cheaper by two percentage points. The government will provide a subsidy of approximately Rs.600 crore. Duty drawbacks, a mechanism by which exporters get back a part of duty paid on inputs, have been raised in certain cases and that will cost the exchequer between Rs.500 crore and Rs.600 crore. Any package such as this is bound to be selective and cannot satisfy all the affected sections.
As for the bigger picture, trade data for the first two months of 2006-07 show a sharp widening of the trade deficit even without factoring in the rupee appreciation. There are other pointers too.
The Commerce Ministry has scaled down its export target for the year from $160 billion to $125 billion. Besides, global petroleum prices have started rising. Of particular concern is the current account deficit. Without taking into account the inward remittances, it is as high as 4 per cent of the GDP.
Software and services exports, an important cushion, have come under pressure due partly to the rupee’s rise and partly to the higher staff costs. While capital inflows continue to keep the balance of payments in surplus, the flood of dollars they represent has been the main cause for the rupee’s rise.
Exporters’ woes and the relief package underline one facet of the problem but it is clear that enduring solutions will have to be found after reconciling the monetary policy’s different short-term objectives.

On July 20, Michael Berger is scheduled to appear before a judge in Vienna, Austria, to determine whether he will be kept in prison or freed from jail while a variety of charges against him are sorted out.
The judge may very well decide that it is best to keep Berger under lock and key.
As reported by Businessweek.com, in 2000, the onetime hedge fund manager pleaded guilty to securities fraud in New York and then, after the district court recommended an 87-month sentence and a $424 million fine, he fled the country.
He was on the run for years, until his capture earlier this month after a manhunt spearheaded by the FBI.

Eluding the Law
Berger’s case is one example of how difficult it can be for authorities to track down white-collar fugitives. They have advantages that more typical criminals lack, including ties to foreign countries, advanced degrees, and barrels of money that can help secure safe havens.
Berger, now 35, was born in London and grew up in Salzburg, Austria.
He managed hundreds of millions of dollars out of Park Avenue offices in New York before authorities charged him with misleading investors about his stockpicking prowess.
Even as he reported stellar returns to his backers, Berger was hemorrhaging more than $400 million by betting against Internet stocks in the late 1990s.
Using his connections and his persuasiveness, Berger was able to avoid legal authorities for years.
Berger is the second high-profile white-collar criminal to be captured in less than a year. Jacob “Kobi“ Alexander, the former chief executive of onetime high-flier Comverse Technology (CMVT), was arrested last fall in Namibia. He fled the US after being charged with backdating stock options at Comverse.
Even now it is unclear whether either white-collar fugitive will ever face justice in the US American law-enforcement officials have requested Berger’s extradition, but Austria may not comply.

Covering Up
Berger came to New York in 1993 to work for securities broker-dealer Financial Assets Management, based in Columbus, Ohio. Two years later, at the age of 24, he opened Manhattan Investment Fund, selling dozens of offshore investors on the idea that soaring dot-com stocks were due for a correction. Initial shares were valued at $100, with a minimum investment of 250 shares.
The Internet kept booming in those early days. Berger saw significant losses during his first few months, with assets shrinking to $5.6 million at the end of 1996, even as he told investors that they had grown to $17.9 million, according to prosecutors.
Berger was not the only one accused of wrongdoing. In one investor lawsuit, Bear Stearns was charged with compounding the problems of Berger’s fraud by extending him a line of credit so he could short-sell more Internet stocks and bring on more investors.
One of the more unusual episodes came several months later, when Berger tried to withdraw his guilty plea. He said that he was not mentally competent at the time that he made it, arguing among other things that his “extremely traumatic childhood“ made him fearful that his attorney at the time would abandon him unless he pleaded guilty as the attorney had advised.

On the Lam
Finally, in 2002, as it became clear that Berger could face more than seven years in prison and huge fines, he ran.
The FBI had few leads except his ties to London, New York, Florida, the Dominican Republic, and Austria.
Austrian police told Bloomberg News that information received in recent months caused their team and the FBI to heighten search efforts in the region. Berger was found on July 9 driving a red Opel Corsa sedan.
The arrest brings some closure to one of the first and largest hedge fund securities frauds in history.
If the continually postponed extradition trial of Comverse’s Alexander is any indication, however, it may be a year or more before it’s determined which country will try Berger.

The faster-than-expected acceleration in economic growth in the first half of the year makes it urgent for China to further tighten its macro controls.
The economy surged by 11.9 percent in the second quarter, following 11.1 percent growth in the first quarter. Looking over the latest batch of economic figures, one finds reasons for optimism, reported Xinhua.com.
For instance, retail sales expanded at a rate of 15.8 percent in the second quarter, after soaring 14.9 percent in the first quarter. Domestic sales grew by 16.0 percent in June compared with the previous month.
Admittedly, consumption remains low as a share of gross domestic product. But the steady acceleration in domestic consumption, if it is sustained, will help the country rebalance its growth away from investment and exports.
The fast growth of income is also good news for the country. The average income of urban residents increased by 14.2 percent year-on-year in the first six months, while farmers earned 13.3 percent more than they did during the same period last year.
This kind of income growth will raise people’s living standards and fuel consumption. The latest statistics also revealed some problems that policymakers should be quick to fix.
The fact that investment has continued to expand at a rapid pace means that more tightening measures are needed--not only to prevent the economy from overheating but also to help the country achieve its energy-saving and pollution-reduction goals.
Fixed asset investment soared 25.9 percent in the first half of this year. Though the number was 3.9 percentage points lower than the same period last year, it marked a 2.2-percentage-point pickup from the first quarter.
If the pace of investment cannot be effectively reined in, it is likely that the country will eventually find itself caught between overcapacity and a failure to improve energy efficiency and cut pollution emissions.
Another worrisome problem is the threat of inflation. China’s consumer price index (CPI) jumped 4.4 percent in June, pushing the inflation level for the first half of the year up to 3.2 percent, well above both the central bank’s comfort zone of 3 percent and the benchmark deposit rate.
It is far too early to tell if the increase in the CPI, which was largely fueled by soaring food prices, is only temporary or will bleed into non-food categories.
However, since the economy is currently at greater risk of boiling over than cooling down, policymakers should look at the inflation figure with great caution.