The Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Rio (MPRJ) requested the Justice that the state of Rio prove, within 48 hours, the adoption of measures to take over the public waterway transport service from February 12th. If it does not indicate that this will occur, the prosecution requires that all necessary measures be adopted to guarantee the operation of the service between Rio and Niterói and other lines, with actions such as intervention in the administration. 
Transportation by boat in Guanabara Bay has lines between Praça XV and Niterói, Praça XV and Paquetá, Praça XV and the neighborhood of Cocotá, on Ilha do Governador and Ilha Grande and Mangaratiba, on Costa Verde.
If there is no evidence that the state government will assume the service, the MPRJ asks that the Justice decree immediate judicial intervention in the administration of the boats, with the appointment of a judicial administrator to exercise his presidency until the conclusion of the next bidding procedure. The MPRJ requests the blocking of CCR Barcas accounts, in order to guarantee resources to the trustee for the regular continuity of the public service.
The MPRJ’s request aims to provisionally comply with a court decision handed down in 2017, in a lawsuit filed in 2004, which annulled the concession contract entered into by the state and the company Barcas SA – later succeeded by CCR Barcas. The MPRJ demonstrated in the action that the minimum price stipulation was inadequate, since the equity value of the then Conerj (State Navigation Company) was artificially fixed. The Justice also recognized that the concession contract had modifications in relation to the notice, adding significant benefits to the concessionaire.
The MPRJ also points out that the State has not taken the necessary measures to take over the service or grant it to a new provider to ensure the continuity of the service from February 12th. Instead, it is working with the hypothesis of temporary hiring or extension of the current operation.
“The lack of final and unappealable decision of a Collegiate Body that annuls a contract for considering it in violation of the legal system be used as a basis for extending this contract beyond the term that it would have if it were considered in accordance with the law,” says the document.
Concession
In 2022, the CCR Barcas concessionaire announced that it would return and not renew the concession contract on February 11 of this year, as the government of Rio would have a debt of more than R$ 1 billion. Governor Cláudio Castro informed that operations would continue for another year after the end of the contract, while new studies are carried out by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).
With less than 10 days left for the end of the concession, the government is still trying to homologate an agreement with the CCR Group to extend the concession. The study to draw up a new concession model should be ready in May, four months after the current contract. According to the concessionaire, the company’s operations had a reduction of about 60% in user traffic between 2000 and 2022, falling from more than 21 million to less than 9 million per year. The company says that the system has not yet recovered from the downfall of the pandemic and transports around 40,000 people a day.
