The Heavy Transport Pilots Guild announced that for this Monday, October 17, work will be paralyzed as a sign of protest against the increase in fuel, which they consider to be unsustainable for the population.
“With the price of diesel, you can’t,” said Rony Mendoza, president of the union, in a video that was broadcast on social networks to announce the measures they will take. “On Monday we went into unemployment or work stoppage,” he added.
He pointed out that placing a van at each exit from the capital city would complicate traffic, but won’t block roads or burn tiresRather, they will be “idle-handed” and will not go out to work.
The union has more than 7,000 carriers who own trucks and “can’t take it anymore” with the rise in fuel prices. Currently, the price of a gallon of diesel exceeds Q42..
Said increase, he adds, falls on the final consumer, since the price of the products of the basic basket will increase as a collateral effect.
“45 percent of the carriers who carry fuel to the departments that will not work this Monday have already confirmed to me,” Mendoza said.
He indicated that 97 percent of the carriers are working with “red numbers”, and mentioned that heavy transport is a “link that if Guatemala breaks, it will go bankrupt”
On the other hand, the 72nd station of the National Civil Police based in Sololá sent the Departmental Governor the accompaniment in different points of the town with the purpose of “guaranteeing the constitutional right to free movement.”
During the last months, the Government, approved by Congress, maintained a diesel subsidy of Q5 per gallon, but this measure ended on September 30. In recent days the price of fuel has continued to rise.
The rise in fuel prices is due to two factors, according to Enrique Meléndez, executive director of the Guatemalan Association of Gasoline Vendors. It is first influenced by the depreciation of the quetzal against the dollar and then by the production cut agreed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).
