Starting this Tuesday, The Government will adopt ‘appropriate measures’ to deal with a possible business strike by freight transporters, as President Gustavo Petro assured in his official account on the social network X, in which he also warned that “the country will not allow itself to be blocked.”
You can see: For every day of strike, foreign trade could lose up to 300 million dollars
The president explained in his tweet that the increase of $1,904 in the price of diesel “It is fair, because it is only recovering the money from a subsidy that should never have been given and that already amounts to a large fraction of Colombia’s public debt”and added that giving food to hungry people and education to our children and youth, “It forces us to equalize diesel prices.”
For his part, the Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla González, explained, in radio statements, that The new price of ACPM is due to the fact that this fuel has been frozen for more than 56 months, even before the pandemic.
“This freeze means today one billion pesos a month that Ecopetrol charges us, because it is being sold at service stations at a price below the price that Ecopetrol charges for this fuel,” the head of the Treasury portfolio assured.
He added that, due to this diesel subsidy, The government has paid Ecopetrol $56 billion, and this year it must pay the state oil company another $12 billion for the same reason.
You can read: Transporters say that the increase in diesel fuel in the country will destroy their sector
Bogotá, September 3, 2024. Blocked in the Truckers’ Strike on Carrera 7 with Calle 173, about 200 vehicles including dump trucks, trucks, special services blocked two of the three lanes.
Milton Diaz / CEET
“That is much more than what we have to pay to the International Monetary Fund for the loan it gave to the country in 2020 due to the pandemic. So, under these conditions, it is unsustainable to maintain this burden,” he emphasized.
The minister recalled that 14 working tables were held with the freight transport unions and different topics were addressed but that “Every time we get to the issue of adjustment, then they (the transporters) say: ‘no, we cannot adjust the price’, but it is impossible to keep it frozen.”
He added that the same decision had already been taken with gasoline, which had also been frozen since January 2020, and the adjustment of the diesel fuel was still pending.
“Gasoline is now at the international price, we finished adjusting it, it cost us two points of inflation. The suggestion to increase diesel in a high figure and not like gasoline, was from the transport unions themselves because if it were done in a staggered manner they would not be able to adjust freight rates every month,” explained Bonilla González.
He added that, by making three adjustments, it implies an automatic adjustment of freight rates, as has already been done since last week by 7.4%.
You can see: ‘The country will not allow itself to be blocked’: Petro defends the increase in diesel prices in the face of strong protests
Truckers strike
Andrea Moreno / Portfolio
Saving $400 billion
For her part, the Minister of Transport, María Constanza García, assured that with the adjustment in the price of the Acpm, The country will save $400 billion per month, or $1.6 trillion for the remainder of 2024.
At today’s meeting, Garcia’s intention is “Validation means that there are other measures, other needs. President Petro calls for us to see this as an opportunity to modernize the vehicle fleet, the Government is also interested in promoting the technological census of the vehicle fleet, decarbonizing transportation”he insisted.
The minister concluded that the increase in diesel prices means that an increase of 0.3% is passed on to the CPI.
“I say this also to send a message of reassurance that this increase, which is necessary, will not generate an impact that cannot be assumed within the monitoring we have been doing of the increase in the CPI.”
Paula Galeano Balaguera
Portfolio Journalist
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