NTU warns of the risk of disruption in the service offer if a new fuel readjustment is confirmed
THE NTU (National Association of Urban Transport Companies) released a note warning that there will be a lack of transport in large cities if diesel rises again – which Petrobras may announce in the coming days.
This year alone, fuel has risen 35%, said the association this Thursday (May 5, 2022). Here’s the intact of the note shared by NTU (108 KB).
“If no sources are defined to cover these additional costs, operators will be forced to ration fuel and only offer travel at peak times, in the morning and in the afternoon”said the president of NTU, Francisco Christovam.
“The rest of the time, buses will have to be parked in garages. Companies do not want to practice selective operation, serving only lines and schedules of greater demand, but they will be forced to adopt this radical measure because they can no longer bear the successive increases in cost and losses”.
In all, 43 million passengers rely on this service every day.
According to NTU, operating only during peak hours, buses will stop running in the middle of the morning and afternoon, at night and on weekends.
“The overwhelming majority of our associates have no cash to face yet another readjustment; there is no way to buy diesel to run, putting a bus on the street with an empty tank would be irresponsible”says Christopher.
“The consequence of this increase, if it comes, will be the worsening of the quality of transport. And it is the population that suffers from the postponement of the measures that need to be taken”.
Diesel is the 2nd cost item that weighs the most on urban bus fares, after labor, with an average share of 30.2% in the general cost of public transport operators.
“The increases registered from January to now, of the order of 35% in the refineries, already represent an increase in the costs of public transport by bus by 10.6% this year alone”.
This impact has not yet been offset by fare increases or subsidies by municipalities, which contract public transport services, says the NTU.
According to Abicom (Brazilian Association of Fuel Importers), the adjustment would have to be 24% for diesel and 12% for gasoline, to maintain Petrobras’ price parity (exchange variation and the increase in international oil prices ).
The new president of Petrobras, José Mauro Ferreira Coelho, has already stated that he will maintain the policy of practicing market prices for fuels.
For the president of NTU, the solution would be to adopt mechanisms to stabilize fuel prices, ranging from reformulating the tax structure on diesel to adopting special pricing policies for essential sectors such as public transport.
Another alternative, according to the executive, would be the separation between the public fare, the use of the bus, the technical fare, or the remuneration of the operators’ costs, with the difference being borne by the public authorities.
NTU also proposes the adoption of two other measures to solve the problem:
- the exemption of all taxes levied on inputs used by public transport, which together represent a tax burden of 35.6%, extremely high as it is levied on an essential service used mainly by the lower-income population;
- the use of the federal government’s share of the results generated by Petrobras to offset the impact of the increase in diesel used by public transport services. In 2021, Petrobras had a record net profit of BRL 106.6 billion, with the federal government having a 36.7% share in this result – which tends to increase with these new price adjustments.
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