This Thursday José Pedro Pollak took office as the new president of the State Railways Administration (AFE) replacing Miguel Vaczy.
Pollak, former director of the National Port Administration (ANP) between 2010 and 2013, has been one of the direct advisers of President Luis Lacalle Pou on logistics issues. He carried out that task when the current president assumed his first term as a deputy in 2000. He also knew how to fulfill that role in the last two electoral campaigns in which Lacalle Pou ran for President of the Republic, as reference of its technical teams in the field.
The replacement is given in a context of relationship problems in the AFE directory. Gustavo Osta, a leader close to former president Julio María Sanguinetti and Colorado representative in that entity, had indicated in March that the link with Vaczy was “complex and bad“. Osta had accused the nationalist of”abuse of functions“within the framework of the management of the company.
“It is a tactical change and does not obey any change in strategy“, he had highlighted President Lacalle Pou, when consulted at a press conference on Monday, November 29. The president pointed out that Pollak “He is going to help with some issues in the Ministry of Transport and Public Works (MTOP), he is a person I trust, of many years“.
This Thursday, at the MTOP headquarters, Pollak assumed the position at the head of AFE in the presence of the head of the portfolio, José Luis Falero, the Minister of the Interior and former head of the MTOP, Luis Alberto Heber and the Minister of Social Development, Martín Lema.
Leonardo Carreño
José Pedro Pollak, president of AFE
Falero thanked Pollak on behalf of the government and defined him as a “man of knowledge”. He also thanked the outgoing president, Miguel Vaczy, who will be incorporated into the National Directorate of Rail Transport to dedicate to “other activities“Of a more technical nature since the government considers it”convenient and necessary”.
For the holder of the MTOP, the railway development is “indispensable”For Uruguay. Along these lines, he pointed out that “a door that had already begun to open opens to continue strengthening future processes“And for the railway”be a modern and complementary means of transport to what is today road transport and river transport”.
Pollak, for his part, defined his arrival at AFE and Vaczy’s departure as a “castling”. “He is going to come to the MTOP to work on very technical aspects of the future operation of the Central Railroad and I am going to join AFE“, said.
The new AFE chief pointed to a “great multimodal combination of water, land and air that is serious“Due to changes in”the world’s operating and economic circumstances”.
To promote Salto Grande as a logistics hub, Pollak said that Uruguay It must work so that in the medium term an international rail transport agreement can be signed between Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Regarding the link with Brazil, the new president of AFE defined it as “complicated”. Some topics “They can have a 5-year perspective, Brazil is more complex, it will take longer but we must not lose sight of it”.
“I feel that a new time is coming in this transportation business. The country is playing seriously and for me it is an honor to be actively participating in the creation of this new time”, Concluded the hierarch.
