There are all sorts of people who made headlines for closing down routes, pressuring the government, driving people crazy, extorting money, going to jail and threatening to shut down an entire country. There are those who launder money through the business that moves the products of our country, there are those who drop prices to the ground, those who surrender to the offer that they cannot refuse from the business intermediaries and also how Eugenio Martínez who He has only one truck, lives in Santa Rosa del Mbutuy and that his profit margins can barely allow him to pay the value of the vehicle. He spoke with Benjamín Fernández Bogado on the Radio Libre program “Contrapoder” and told the truth about him.
He is one of the many truckers who recently were demonstrating for problems that their colleagues have and what the cost of fuel means for this group of workers and what they claimed in relation to the rise in fuel that produced a series of inconveniences. even for people who did not transport any product but lives that had to get from one point to another.
They had their highlights blocking the free movement of people and vehicles, which generated public irritation and fear of the weak Abdo government falling under pressure. Eugenio Martínez is one of the many drivers who maintains and supports his family by driving his vehicle, which mainly transports soybeans. . “I am 58 years old and I have been in this business for more than 25 years and I have only been able to renew two trucks in all this time because the margins of the business are very narrow. People like me are less than 50% of the business” he affirms with a hint of pessimism and unease”. He affirms that in reality it is very difficult to get out of the control that the transport companies have over the loads, which are the ones that set the price of the freight. “These intermediaries push prices down, harming our business, and also today the soybean companies also have their own fleet, which makes the business more complicated,” says Martínez, who also questioned the lack of democratic elections in the freighter unions.
Cloudy business
Martínez also affirmed that “there are political figures linked to drug trafficking, such as the former deputy deputy of the ANR Chicharo, who had more than 200 trucks that charged a lower value for freight than what we establish.” He said that the transportation business is used to launder illegal assets. “Even Cartes has companies related to this area that increasingly leave less profit margin. A truck costs more or less 400 million guaraníes and the monthly payment to pay is 7 million for the purchase. Adding the payment to the driver, insurance, fuel, tire wear, etc. the margin that remains is very low”.
He also stated that this business cannot be maintained without the State intervening and setting the freight values. “If it depended on supply and demand they would just destroy us even more,” he said ruefully.
The subsidy that the Paraguayan state gave to the Petropar gas station aroused the discomfort of the private gas stations that pressed so that this measure does not distort the market. The transporters hit by the arrest of their leaders left for Thursday to resolve a series of issues that range from their particular interests to issues that seek the adhesion of other sectors to their cause, such as how to repeal the Zavala-Riera law that penalizes land invasions . Riera has again proposed severe punishment this time for those who close routes.
The life of a truck driver with a single truck, how the case of Eugenio Martínez represents less than 50% of the carriers in Paraguay and they are squeezed like a sandwich in this fight of interests where there is everything: politicians, trade unionists, intermediaries, soy farmers , mobsters and liars. A society that suffers from the consequences of closures and routes must deal with all this, which irritates it even more than the already heavy economic reality that they have to face.
