Checkpoint delays expose drivers to HIV/AIDS

Aflao, Jan. 17, GNA - Delays experienced by traders and travelers across borders in West Africa has been cited as a major impediment to the World Bank supported fight against the HIV/AIDS in border communities.

Sub-regional communities have therefore been urged to ease travel formalities along their frontiers to reduce travelers' contact with prostitutes and as such their vulnerability to the HIV/AIDS. Madam Rose Arena, Togo Country Financial Director of the World Bank Financed, Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Organization (ALCO) said this on Tuesday.

ALCO is a club of five nations - Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria - formed to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS along their frontiers.

Madam Arena was inaugurating a 26-member Inter-Border Facilitation Committee (IBFC) made up of ALCO border executives from Aflao and Kodzoviakope in Togo.

Three other committees were also inaugurated between Noe and Elubo for Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, Sanvee Condji and Hilan Condji for Togo and Benin and between Krake and Seme for Benin and Nigeria. "The early completion of border crossing formalities is important to ALCO goals and it is significant that all blockages for road users along the corridor are eradicated," she said.

Madam Arena said travelers, particularly stranded transit truck drivers, do have sex with prostitutes in the frontier communities and they (the drivers) as well as the frontier residents needed to have adequate education on ways of avoiding HIV/AIDS.

Mr Emmanuel Impraim, a Chief Collector of CEPS in charge of the Aflao sector who is the joint committee chairman with Mr Anani Kpegba, his Togolese counterparts at Kodzoviakofe as the vice chairman, reiterated the need for streamlining procedures on the corridor to speed up transactions at the borders.

Togbe Amenya Fiti V, Paramount Chief of the Aflao Traditional Area who co-chaired the programme with Togbe Kodzovia De Souza III of Kodzoviakope, appealed to fellow traditional rulers at frontier towns to support the project to avoid the disease claiming their subjects.