June 13, 2023, 4:00 AM
June 13, 2023, 4:00 AM
After intense negotiations. Finally, around 9:00 p.m., the Santa Cruz Governor’s Office and the representatives of the Okinawa One Pro-Roads Committee, along with other organizations from the municipalities of Cotoca, Warnes, and District 15 of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, arrived at a agreement and they suspended the blockade undefined that had been installed early Monday morning.
Hugo Álvarez, president of the Pro Caminos Committee of okinawa onereported that after holding a meeting, for several hours, with the Vice Minister of Transportation, Wilfredo Gutiérrez and with Édgar Landívar, Secretary of Economic Development of the Santa Cruz Governorate, it was agreed to give a seven day period to correct all the errors that slow down the progress of the works.
“The priority will be viability for the construction of the Okinawa-Industrial Park highway. With the signing of this agreement, the blockade is suspended. Now we must work in time and matter so that the construction of the highway is really carried out,” said Álvarez.
Landívar confirmed that the agreement prioritizes the construction project of the Parque Industrial – Okinawa I highway, as well as the commitment to correct the observations, of form, in the change of name in the environmental license for that route.
The government official Santa Cruz indicated that the credit for the construction of this route is already approved and the financier will be CAF – Development Bank of Latin America.
According to the mobilized, the lack of this road hurts the 33 communities surrounding that area, which produce wheat, soybeans, cattle and other foods for the country’s markets.
“With this rain that has fallen, the harvest and harvest. all roads are impassable. There are sick people in the communities who suffer and who die halfway because they cannot get to a hospital,” said Álvarez.
The road infrastructure project began manage in 2014 and it was delivered to the municipalities in 2015, in an official act that was attended by representatives of the Government of Santa Cruz, the central government and Japanese cooperation.
The work of 64.5 kilometers and rigid pavement is divided into three sections. The first (19.1 km) was built and delivered by Japanese cooperation in 2022; the second (5 km) was also completed by the Government in 2021; and the third of almost 40 km and also in charge of the Government still awaits the approval of the loan from the development bank of Latin America-CAF. The eight meter wide highway will be part of the bioceanic route.
“So that the CAF disburse the financing, the Minister of Public Works, Edgar Montaño, you have to sign the guarantee. We are waiting for it”, Álvarez had informedduring the morning of Monday.
On Sunday, Montaño told state media that on this issue “the mistake, the mistake, is from the Ministry of Environment”.
“In May, the note was delivered (to the Governor’s Office) so that they can correct and carry out administrative actions with the Environment,” he remarked.
“The minister says that the environmental sheet is missingbut we have the environmental file that was issued in 2018 at the blockade point,” a document that “is valid for 10 years” and that is issued “for the entire highway” and not by sections, Álvarez said.
Since 2021, the work “has been paralyzed due to bureaucratic errors”, because “some papers expired”. However, “now we have the complete file, but the Government continues to say that one thing is missing or that another is missing” (…). The Government blames the Governorate and the Governorate the same. That is why we ask to sit down with both parties so that we can see who is lying,” said Álvarez.
Even before reaching the agreement, during yesterday’s session the blocking had already been installed at two points on the route to the north: on the bridges Banegas and pans. What generated discomfort between carriers and the productive sector.
The departmental commander of the Police, Colonel Erick Olguín, informed, while the conflict lasted, that police officers were assigned to those points, to avoid confrontations, in time to clarify that he had no order to lift the blockades.
After learning about the agreement, at the Bimodal Terminal the interdepartmental transport operators returned to sell tickets to the north of Santa Cruz.
