The president of the Associação Nova Aliança dos Taxistas de Angola (ANATA) said that the government eliminated bureaucracy in the process of issuing gasoline subsidy cards, which will allow a daily production of 500 cards.
Francisco Paciente told Lusa that since Friday, the date the new gasoline price came into force, around 400 cards have been produced.
“Unfortunately, the measure was taken before the respective cards were produced and now there is some difficulty in assigning the cards,” said Francisco Paciente, who participated in a meeting with the National Road Transport Agency and Luanda taxi drivers, to address the issue Card problem.
Last Thursday, the Angolan government announced the gradual withdrawal of the fuel subsidy, which began with gasoline, maintaining the subsidy for other petroleum derivatives.
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“The government, through the agency, told us that they removed some bureaucracy from the process and as of today began issuing 500 cards per day, more banks increased the issuance of cards (…). In the next two days we will see how the distribution of these cards will be, to see if it covers a greater number of taxi drivers, not only in Luanda, but also in the provinces, where there are already disastrous situations at the moment”, he said.
The province of Huambo, on Monday, and Huila, registered some violent protests over the increase in the price of gasolinewith police intervention, resulting in the first case with five dead, eight injured and more than 30 detainees.
Francisco Paciente stressed that all cards issued to date benefited only taxi drivers in Luanda, where 1,500 gasoline-powered taxi drivers are registered.
The official said they were expecting reports from the provinces of Huila, Huambo, Namibe, where most vehicles run on gasoline, unlike Luanda, which has 80% of vehicles diesel. According to the president of ANATA, if the government meets this daily production goal, “it will be a good way to distribute cards to taxi drivers.”
Asked about the state of mind of taxi drivers in Luanda at this time, Francisco Paciente said that awareness work has been carried out, calling for calm “to avoid disastrous situations”.
“And we are demanding that the government be quick in assigning cards, to avoid reactions from those we are seeing in other provinces. Everything can be avoided depending on the capacity to produce and distribute cards to taxi drivers, ”she stressed. The official stressed that the greater the number of cards issued and distributed, this will help both taxi drivers and citizens to “understand that it is a process.”
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“Especially because the cards are being charged with the balance of the days that the taxi drivers did not have the card. The cards began to be delivered on June 2, those who receive it today will have their balance on days 2, 3, 4 and 5 ”, he highlighted.
“Luanda remains calm, as a result of this meeting that brought together taxi drivers and representatives of fleet managers from the province of Luanda, and we will continue to talk so that the government resolves this card problem as urgently as possible,” he said. .
While the process of delivery of the cards is carried out, Francisco Paciente said who have received reports of isolated cases of increases in the price of taxi faresbut “it is not necessary”, because the missing days will be paid, reiterating that “if diesel has not risen and gasoline is subsidized, there is no reason to increase the price of the taxi ride”.
“But in isolation, we hear that one or the other taxi driver has made an increase in the taxi trip, we do not verify it, but we are actually receiving these reports,” adding that the same problem is verified with those who shortened the routes. .
Source: Observadora
