This Monday, the Transportation Superintendency announced the opening of an administrative investigation and the formulation of charges against citizens José Nelson Cardozo and Alba Luz Girón, owners of a property adjacent to the Altamira toll, located in the Neiva- Mocoa-Santana in Huila, for allegedly building an alternate road on his property so that road users can avoid paying said toll, and for making unauthorized charges to allow the passage of private vehicles and public transport servicesgenerating non-compliance with the rules and legality policies established by the National Government.
(This is how toll prices remained in Colombia for 2022).
According to the Superintendent of Transportation, Wilmer Arley Salazar Arias, “It is the first time that the Entity has opened an administrative sanctioning process for this type of incident that disregards the nature of an essential public service that transportation has, which is subject to the regulation, surveillance and control of the State in order to guarantee its defense and protection. The payment of tolls allows the general well-being, the improvement of the living conditions of the population and the conservation of national roads; therefore, its evasion, in addition to generating a reprehensible detriment, ends up compromising the safety and quality to which all road users in the country are entitled. The law is clear in establishing that any natural or legal person who fails to comply with the regulations in the transport sector can be sanctioned with a view to complying with the policies of legality, equity and transparency in the sector. Let us remember that this is an essential public service that must be provided permanently, regularly and continuously, given the economic and social function that it fulfills and, furthermore, because it is essential for the development and effectiveness of other fundamental rights that they complement or depend on the possible mobility and free locomotion, whether it is the movement of goods from one place to another or the transport of passengers”.
THE CASE
The Superintendency of Transportation received several complaints about an alleged evasion of the payment of the Altamira toll, located on PR 60+0500 RN 4505, left bank of the Santana – Mocoa – Neiva concession road corridor, due to the fact that there is a road adjacent to the concession road, on a property owned by private individuals that is allegedly being used to evade the payment of said toll.
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Apparently, the owners of this property built a road that allows the user of the transport infrastructure to avoid the Altamira toll station in the Department of Huila.
This maneuver is presumably carried out both by drivers of private vehicles and by drivers of public transport vehicles, with the approval of the owners of the property, since Apparently they charge the passage of vehicles, establishing schedules as if it were the provision of an authorized service, when it is not.
The activity carried out by the owners of the property or the persons authorized by them or the persons who are present on the road adjacent to the place does not have any permit or authorization; therefore, the provision of the private property for the transit of vehicles, the alleged charges that are made as a result, as well as the organization of a schedule, would be completely illegal.
In this case, it must be taken into account that the private property road adjacent to the place where the Altamira toll collection station is located in the concession road corridor Neiva – Mocoa – Santanais not part of the road corridor that was concessioned by virtue of the concession contract under APP scheme No. 012 of 2015.
Being a passage in natural terrain, any construction of a technical nature is absent, nor does it have any type of signage, with the consequent effects on road safety.
THE CHARGES
Due to the foregoing, the Directorate of Investigations of Concessions and Infrastructure found merits to initiate an administrative investigation of a sanctioning nature for the alleged facilitation incurred by some private persons who make available to users of the concession road corridor, which includes the Neiva-Mocoa section -Santana, his private property in order to evade the payment of the Altamira toll and proceed with a collection of an illegal, unauthorized service.
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The charges were filed against the natural persons who own the property in question, José Nelson Cardozo and Alba Luz Girón, for:
• allegedly facilitating and/or allowing non-payment of the toll of Altamira to drivers of private vehicles and drivers of vehicles for public transportation that make use of the transportation infrastructure of National Route 4504 that includes the Neiva – Mocoa – Santana corridor.
• allegedly collecting money as if it were the establishment of an “apparent toll” users of the road adjacent to the Altamira toll station, awarding itself a power that only the State has. The foregoing shows that the guiding principles of transport provided for in the laws of the sector, in terms of safety, quality, continuity, free access, opportunity and efficiency, would be ignored.
Likewise, this decision was adopted because the behavior of the owners of the property is not only unaware of the obligation to pay the legally established tolls, but is also compromising proper maintenance, operation and development of public transport infrastructure, putting at risk the conditions of quality, safety and accessibility with which the permanent, efficient and safe provision of the transport service must be guaranteed.
SPECIAL MEASURES
In addition to the filing of charges against these natural persons, special measures were decreed that correspond to an immediate refrain from facilitating and/or allowing the indiscriminate transit of vehicles through the private property adjacent to the Altamira toll station, both private vehicles and public transport.
Likewise, orders were issued by way of special measures, so that the passenger road transport companies that have been identified as evading the payment of the Altamira toll refrain from continuing with this practice, to the concessionaire Ruta al Sur. , to the Municipal Mayor’s Office and the Police Inspection of Altamira – Huila and to the Sectional Directorate of Transit and Transportation of Huila, aimed not only at complying with the regulations that govern the transit and transportation system, but also, also, to ensure the adequate maintenance, operation and development of the transport infrastructure in conditions of quality, safety and accessibility with which the permanent, efficient and safe provision of the transport service must be guaranteed..
POSSIBLE SANCTIONS
If natural persons are found responsible, they may be sanctioned with fines of up to 700 current legal minimum wages. In addition, public transport companies that evade the payment of the Altamira toll could also be subject to investigations by SuperTransporte.
BRIEFCASE
