The demands of truckers who want to blockade Paraguay’s capital
The unions of truckers and transporters of Paraguay announced the intensification of pressure measures after the fifth day of protests.
They could besiege Asunción, the country’s capital, after the breach of the agreements reached in July 2022 with the government of President Mario Abdo Benítez regarding the reduction of fuel prices.
Organized groups of truck drivers are threatening to besiege Asunción as a measure of pressure on the government and the directors of Petróleos Paraguayos (Petropar), the Paraguayan state-owned gasoline supplier.
The transporters demand a reduction of PYG 1,500 (US$0.21) per liter for diesel and 93 octane gasoline.
In the middle of this year, the transporters in different organizations agreed with the Executive Power of Paraguay to discounts of PYG 700 per liter, which the transport union accuses of non-compliance.
“We would be reactivating to change strategies; we will organize the way to enter Asunción,” affirmed Darío Toñánez, leader of truck drivers of Paraguay to Radio Monumental, who also denounced intense police repression that seeks to prevent the road blockade.
The government headed by Mario Abdo Benítez maintains that it is impossible to agree to the reduction demanded by the transport unions.
However, they assumed that a reduction in the price of the different types of fuels could be evaluated once “a new shipment of hydrocarbons arrives in the country in the first fortnight of October,” said the president of Petropar, Denis Lichi.
The official senator Óscar Salomón, president of the Chamber of Senators, said that the price of Petropar fuel must go down, even though he estimated that the reduction of PYG 1,500 requested by the transport unions is “difficult to comply with”.
“I believe that it should go down a little bit more”, expressed Salomón to local media stationed at the Paraguayan Congress. However, he affirmed that it is a difficult demand for the state-owned oil company to comply with.
“We are talking with the president of Petropar, and they are dialoguing, trying to reach an agreement, evidently the truckers are asking for something complicated to fulfill, which is the reduction of PYG 1,500 per liter; they say that, at this moment, it is impossible, but they are trying to reach some kind of agreement,” he said.
PRIVATE COMPANIES LOWER FUEL PRICES
Meanwhile, the private pumps lowered all fuels, except diesel, by PYG 150 on average, which does not constitute a significant reduction in the price of fuels; therefore, the mobilization of transporters will continue in the country.
“We are going to reduce prices as international prices go down. Since yesterday, diesel and naphtha (gasoline) have been down. Let’s hope they stay that way,” said Miguel Bazán, president of the Chamber of Paraguayan Fuel Distributors (Cadipac), to the Paraguayan media ABC.
On July 26, President Mario Abdo Benítez announced that the government would promote a “special plan for the transport sector” when the carriers went on strike nationwide.
The president stated that this measure was not promoted to deactivate the protests but to transfer a benefit to the consumer.
However, less than two months after the negotiations, the transporters have expressed their discontent with what they claim as “unfulfilled promises” by the Paraguayan executive. Toñánez assured local media that the protests had popular support.
“The people understand that what we are fighting for is fair and is for all citizens; the people are fed up with the lies and the tug-of-war with the government, with Lichi above all,” said the spokesman for the truckers’ union.
With information from Sputnik
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