2024-09-05 21:45:35
“Our demands go beyond price”: Asocahuila. Jesús Monroy, vice president of the Huila Truck Drivers Association, said that those who are promoting the strike are the large transport companies. The spokesman for small and medium transporters said that they are requesting equity in the imposition of freight rates, professionalization of drivers, control of toll prices and distances between them, among other things.
HUILA DAILY, HUILA
By: Gustavo Patiño
Yesterday, at the time of going to press, the Ministry of Transport, along with other ministerial portfolios such as the Interior, was still meeting with the spokesmen of the transporters, who began a strike four days ago due to the increase of 1,904 pesos in the price of ACPM or Diesel on August 30 and which, in the next few months, should rise a little more than six thousand pesos. The transporters point out that the sudden increase in fuel will generate adjustments in their operations, which translates into an increase in food prices. Yesterday, in statements to the media, the Minister of Transport María Constanza García Alicastro indicated that the national government is fully willing to dialogue with the transporters, proposing to stop the next increases in price. However, the transporters have demanded that the decree that generated the first increase be repealed.
The FEPC
The increase in the price of diesel fuel is a measure that, as the Petro government has said, ‘is unpopular, but necessary’ because it seeks to reduce the current deficit of the Fuel Price Stabilization Fund – FEPC, created by the government of Álvaro Uribe in 2005 and which, at the time, had the purpose of preventing the fluctuating international price of oil from affecting Colombians.
The formula, although simple since it proposed that the fund would allow to cushion the increase in gasoline and diesel prices, subsidizing when oil prices increased and recovering the money when they fell again, could not be sustainable over time, since the adjustments in the domestic price could not keep pace with the international price of oil, especially during the pandemic, since the Duque government decided not to increase fuel prices, avoiding the political cost in the midst of the pandemic and the social outbreak of 2021, which left Petro with a debt of more than 28 billion pesos in the fund.
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For the international price
Economic analysts point out that Petro’s argument about the inevitability of an increase in the price of diesel is false, since Ecopetrol produces almost all of the diesel consumed in Colombia, so they point out that it is irrational for the price to be adjusted to the international price and that if the formula for the price of diesel were linked to the national cost, the price would go from more than nine thousand pesos to a little more than ten thousand, but with the adjustment to the international price, it would have to cost more than 15 thousand pesos per gallon.
According to these critics, the decision not to adjust the price based on international prices was not made because 12% of Ecopetrol is private, with some international capital that benefits either from the Colombian state subsidy to the fund or from the increase proposed by Petro, which ends up affecting the pockets of consumers.
Driveless conveyors
Although the discussion is on the table, the transporters’ union is not unified and there are internal discussions. Diario del Huila spoke with Jesús Monroy, vice president of the Association of Truckers of Huila – Asocahuila, who pointed out that those who are promoting the strike are the large transport companies, who, like all transporters, benefited from Duque’s decision not to increase the price of fuel, but who also obtain profits from the imposition of costs on freight, leaving small and medium transporters like those represented by the association to which Monroy belongs, ‘stranded’.
“Those who are promoting the strike in the country are the large freight transport companies, such as Fedetranscarga, Mr. Gustavo Contreras and Mrs. Aida. They, like all transporters, benefited from the subsidy, but also from the freight prices that they themselves impose and with which they leave us small and medium transporters in the lurch. The price of diesel fuel has not increased significantly for about two years, this was known to happen,” says Monroy.
Intermediaries
He adds that among the biggest problems faced by transporters are the participation of intermediaries and the inadequate regulation of freight prices, “we as independent transporters and small business owners want a SICE TAC (Efficient Cost Information System) table that is complied with at a national level, because fuel costs have gone up, of course, we are affected too, but what we want now as a result of the fuel increase is for the SICE TAC cost table to be directly applied, and for new prices to be managed again for tolls and the distances between them, the distances between tolls, the scrapping of our cargo vehicles, the professionalization of the driver, in other words, there are several points and so third, fourth or fifth we would say is the cost of diesel fuel.”
Controls on intermediation
Monroy also points out that it is necessary to develop controls with the load generators, because the intermediation ends up affecting the small transporters who, in every possible way, try to reduce costs to meet the quotas of their vehicles, “many small transporters end up sleeping on the road to save and be able to pay the tolls, the intermediaries receive a price and take their cut and many, out of need to pay the quotas of their cars, are forced to accept that they are paid very little for the loads.”
He assures that, although his association supports the demonstration, they do not agree with the de facto actions, that is, the blocking of roads, “we as the Huila Truck Drivers Association do not want to reach de facto actions, for that we already have representatives in Bogotá speaking directly with the Ministry so that they can also organize the costs of the diesel fuel and from there on everything that has to do with the transportation problem,” he assures.
The leader of Huila transporters assures that the rise in prices is also the result of speculation by merchants, “merchants are the ones who begin to generate more expenses for the population, for example, there is cargo that arrived last week such as non-perishable products or those that last a little longer such as sugar, oils, yes, they already began to raise them right away, so those who are taking advantage of the same people are the merchants with speculation.”
They keep working
The leader of Asocahuila assured that, while the big cities remain blocked, the transporters of the region are working in Huila and nearby departments, “Bogotá, the road to Llano, Boyacá, Nariño, the road to the coast are blocked. Some have left their vehicles parked, others are doing work nearby, let’s say from Pitalito, Garzón, Neiva to Florencia, towards Mocoa. Traffic has been normal, we have learned through the WhatsApp groups that we work with, that the roads are calm and I tell my colleagues from the department of Huila, those I know from Caquetá, those I know from Mocoa, that we should continue working because the fight always takes place in the main parts where there are senators, congressmen and the president, that they should do their work there” he concludes.
There is no shortage
Diario del Huila consulted with Germán Peña, manager of the Neiva Surabastos supply center, about the behavior regarding food supplies. The executive assured that for the moment there is no shortage and called for calm, although he acknowledged that in recent days less than 65% of the vehicles that normally arrive at the supply center have arrived, “for the moment there are still enough products, there may be problems in the next few days with fruits such as grapes, apples, or with potatoes and onions, products that come from other regions of the country or that are brought from Bogotá, but for the moment we still have supplies, so we call for calm to citizens so that they do not get carried away by misinformation,” said Peña.
No blockades in Huila
In the department of Huila, with the exception of the road to the municipality of Isnos, there are no blockades at the moment. Last Tuesday, the road was cut off at the Neiva – Castilla toll booth, but it only lasted an hour. “The Traffic and Transport Section has issued a report of calm on the roads of the department of Huila. We have a blockade at kilometer 97 on the road from Isnos to Popayán. These protesters are allowing emergency vehicles to pass.”
“In the same way, in the municipality of Pitalito, transporters are peacefully holding a pitathon on all the streets of the jurisdiction. We invite all citizens to travel to other regions of the country with sufficient time, taking into account that all jurisdictions are experiencing sporadic closures in support of the Truckers’ strike,” said Major David Mauricio Lizarazu, Sectional Chief of Traffic and Transportation of the Huila Police Department, yesterday.