Public transport and cargo unions disagreed with the increase announced by the national government of 200 pesos for fuel each monthto level the price internationally.
Both taxi drivers and cargo carriers rated the measure as negative, because Colombia currently has two of its own refineries that can meet fuel consumption in the country.
Hugo Ospina, spokesman for the taxi drivers, said, “what we manifest to the National Government is that we need it to put the eye of the hurricane on the country’s refineries, on the biofuel generators.”
Can read: Get your pocket ready: from this Saturday the gallon of gasoline went up $200
He added, It cannot be possible that a gallon of biodiesel today costs $23,100 pesos and a gallon of ethanol is costing $13,048 pesos there, if they pay great attention to the price of biofuel, it would lower diesel between 1,700 and 1,850 pesos and gasoline to an average of one thousand pesos per gallon
For Ospina, one of the questions that arises is “where are they charging us so high for fuel, making these biofuel lords rich without taking into account the collateral damage they do to public and private service vehicles, since biofuel deteriorates very quickly, it rots and damages the entire injection system, that’s why the rise of $200 pesos for us is what the country has been doing, every month it goes up 100 or 200 pesos and that’s how they got us used to the rise in the fuels.
“As a taxi union, we need them not to tell us that in January it once rose to 16 or 18 thousand pesos, we continue at the tables of social dialogue with the minister at the head,” said the spokesman for taxi drivers.
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The formula for establishing the price of fuel is made with obsolete resolutions
Hugo Ospina highlighted, we we are telling the national government to change the formula by which the value of fuel is set in Colombia, to change all those obsolete resolutions that the only thing they have done is enrich a few to the detriment of millions of Colombians, the time has come to remove the tax that is being given to Ecopetrol to support a public-private company.
The president of the Confederation of Freight Transporters, Jorge García said, we do not agree with the increase in the price of fuels called gasoline, gas, diesel, it is necessary to review the formula that we as a country are not capable of withstanding some increases to match the international price such as the United States, Europe, given that the per capita income of a Colombian citizen is lower.
For Jorge García, the average income of a North American citizen is one thousand 100 dollars, which is equivalent to four five million pesos, the same in Europe and in Colombia the income level is one million 100 thousand, which in Colombia it is not justified, when it has its own refineries such as the one in Barranca, Cartagena, to supply all domestic consumption.
