DAKAR (Reuters) - Chaotic transport is a part of life in West
Africa, but getting to work has become even harder as rocketing fuel
prices ignite protests by bus and taxi drivers, squeeze family budgets
and encourage fuel smuggling.
Global oil prices doubled in the
past year and continued to rising strongly in 2008, hitting hard those
who earn a living on the roads of some of the world's poorest countries.
This
has fuelled social unrest in some fragile countries whose governments
do not have the means to indefinitely soak up the higher fuel prices
with subsidies.
Battered taxis and colourful minibuses with
smashed lights and cracked windscreens are a common sight in West
Africa, where most people rely on them to get around. But their drivers
say soaring fuel prices have swallowed all their profits.
"We
work only to pay for the fuel, we are not making money," Moussa, who
has been a taxi driver in Senegal's capital Dakar for seven years, said
as he stopped to fill his tank.
The price of diesel here has
risen by a quarter since the start of the year to 813 CFA francs (97
pence) per litre, but taxi drivers find it hard to pass on the higher
costs.
"We ask for more, but clients cannot give us more because they have no money," said Moussa, who declined to give his last name.
High fuel prices have triggered some strikes already and prompted threats of more.
Birame Faye, a young minibus driver in Dakar, said drivers' meagre revenues had fallen by more than a third.
Minibus
drivers have to pay for the fuel out of the day's earnings, he said,
while government-fixed fares have remained steady for the passengers
who cram inside in the summer heat.
"We want the government to
increase the fares so that we can feed ourselves," Faye said, adding
that drivers might go on strike if that did not happen.
Many West
African governments have tried to cushion the effects of price hikes on
consumers by reducing taxes and levies on food imports and bolstering
subsidies for essential items, like rice and fuel.
But subsidies
weigh heavily on governments' budgets and some countries, like Ivory
Coast and Burkina Faso, have now moved to increase fuel prices to
reflect, at least partly, higher oil prices. That has, in turn, sparked
more protests.
STRIKES
Ivory Coast's economic capital
Abidjan was paralyzed by a transport strike in July after the
government decided to raise gasoline and diesel prices by 29 and 44
percent respectively.
Police used teargas to disperse dozens of
youths who set up roadblocks, before the government agreed to reduce
the diesel price increase and halve ministerial salaries.
Cocoa
exports from the world's number one producer of the bean used to make
chocolate were not badly affected as the strike was staged during a
seasonal lull.
And some of those stranded by the strike were sympathetic.
"We
all agree with the strike because life has become too expensive,"
Patricia Camara, a secretary at an insurance company in Abidjan's
downtown business area said.
"Everything is getting expensive in Abidjan but our salaries do not rise," she said as she waited for a cab to get home.
Even
in Nigeria, the world's eighth largest crude oil exporter, surging oil
prices prompted thousands of gasoline truck drivers to go on strike
early in July.
Long lines formed at gasoline stations in the
capital Abuja, the commercial hub Lagos and other cities as drivers
sought to fill their tanks, fearing the strike would disrupt supplies.
Diesel
prices have risen 110 percent in the past few months to around 170
naira (65 pence) per litre. As in Ivory Coast, unions suspended their
strike after Nigeria's government pledged to further subsidize diesel
prices.
Higher transport costs ripple across the region's economies.
"We
can't even eat well, and now the cost of transport is increasing," said
Ivorian insurance broker Benjamin Kouakou. "This is killing us because
when transport prices rise, everything becomes more expensive."
Lisa
Borgatti, from the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development
(UNCTAD), said last month that the impact of rising oil prices on poor
economies would be "terrible."
"In terms of the impact on the
price of transportation, it means the price of goods imported and
exported increases, and many of the goods imported are primarily
food-related, so that's an extra cost, especially to the poor," she
said in Dakar.
RESIGNATION
However, in some West African countries, people say there is not much point in striking because the problem is a global one.
Mbaye Gue, a Senegalese taxi driver in the business since the 1970s, smiles when asked if he expects a strike in Dakar.
"Everything
increases, our profit decreases, it's exhausting. But this is happening
worldwide, we can't do anything about it," he said.
This resignation may be good news for governments struggling to maintain subsidies that many analysts say are unsustainable.
Landlocked
Burkina Faso raised fuel prices in July by 6.5 to 15 percent, depending
on the type of fuel, after a six-month freeze during which oil company
SONABHY said it lost more than $40 million.
"The government
became aware that it had become impossible for SONABHY to continue
working if the price freeze was maintained," the firm's Director
General Hubert Yameogo said.
Subsidies have also encouraged smuggling.
In
Sierra Leone, where the price of fuel has gone from 13,000 to 16,500
Leones (2.25 to 2.86 pounds) a gallon in less than a year, subsidies
are nonetheless keeping prices lower than in neighbouring states.
"We
have seen successful attempts at smuggling on the increase. In
Guinea-Conakry, I understand it's 27,000 Leones a gallon, so fuel ...
is smuggled out," Trade, Industry and State Enterprises Minister
Alimamy Koroma told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Nick
Tattersall and Randy Fabi in Abuja, Katrina Manson in Freetown, Mathieu
Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou, and Daniel Magnowski in Dakar; Writing by
Ingrid Melander; Editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile)
