The Permanent Commission of the Departmental Board of Montevideo rejected this Thursday a request made by the nationalist mayor Fabián Bravetti to lift the recess so that the legislative body analyzes whether to summon the mayor, Caroline Cosse. The final objective was for the chief to explain the arguments that determined the increase in the price of the ticket.
With three votes against the departmental legislators of the Broad Front and one in favor (of Bravetti), that body decided not to approve the recess and, therefore, the call to the commune hall, the white legislator informed The Observer. The Colorado Matías Barreto integrates the commission, but was not present.
After that vote, Bravetti made a second proposal to invite the director of Urban Mobility, Pablo Inthamoussou, without lifting the recess. The proposal was also rejected by the ruling party.
Diego Battiste
Pro-government and opposition councilors on the call to the Cosse room
“For us, the fact that the increase was proposed in these days of January, which are the first days of the year where people are thinking about other things, had the component of going as unnoticed as possible,” Bravetti told The Observer.
He also criticized the adoption of the measure with the Board “in recess and with the opposition with diminished control mechanisms.”
“The explanations that have been given do not convince us. That it is said that the price is increased because the users have fallen, it falls by itself. Because if we increase costs, the service becomes more expensive and users will stop choosing this means of transport“, he added.
The president of the Permanent Commission and mayor of the Frente Amplio Marcos Presa justified the non-accompaniment of Bravetti’s proposal. “We consider as a bench of the Broad Front that the explanations were already given about the increase in the ticket. That is why we decided not to support either of the two proposals,” he said.
In addition, he pointed out that the councilors “have the guarantees” of making the call to the hierarchs’ room once the recess is lifted.
Photo: Leonardo Carreno.
“What caught our attention is that (the order to the room) was not previously discussed with us,” he said. As she pointed out, “parliamentary courtesy” was lacking.
“We were sent a WhatsApp message requesting to meet the Permanent Commission. We saw some news where the call to the room (from the mayor) was announced. At no time was there a conversation with us beforehand,” he said.
The opinion of Cosse and Inthamoussou on the increase in ticket prices
The mayor, Carolina Cosse, limited herself to responding that the explanations had already been given by the director of Mobility, Pablo Inthamoussou. “There is a refund to the salary mass of transport workers who resigned wages (during the pandemic). That must be returned”the hierarch responded this Thursday at a press conference.
“As I said during the pandemic, the transport workers, who kept the transport running, resigned wages. The companies resigned profitability, and the national government provided a subsidy. We have to replenish workers and companies,” he added.
In turn, he pointed out that the price of the ticket is not governed only by the price of fuel. “The ticket parametric has a lot of factors. Fuel is one of them, it’s not the only one.“, he asserted.
According to Inthamoussu, the country is going through “the worst crisis in the history of transportation.”
The hierarch specified that as a result of the pandemic the Metropolitan Transport System (STM) “lost 220 million tickets” in three years, which translates (in “gross numbers”) into $220 million. This amount “evaporates from the box of the transportation system,” he said.
As the second reason behind the ticket increase, Inthamoussu pointed to the go up in prices: “The entire transport system is in an economy where prices change. As the year goes by, prices increase. There is an issue in the economy that is inflation that we do not control, and prices have to be updated from time to time“, he asserted at a press conference.
How much will the ticket price increase?
The increase that the IM set is $3 for the ticket with the use of the STM card (happens to cost $42), $4 for payment in cash (happens to cost $52) and, in the case of the tariff, it will cost $24 for half an hour and $48 for the whole hour.
In the case of the ticket, the measure will come into force as of this Thursday, January 5, while the price will be as of Monday the 16th.
