With the signing of the agreement, a pilot plan for the opening of the Rumichaca bridge was launched

Tulcan

Ecuadorian drivers showed their satisfaction at the official opening of the Rumichaca international bridge, a process that they describe as appropriate, even more so when more than a dozen traffic accidents have been registered in the neighboring country due to the change in crew.

From today, between 08:00 and 17:00, Ecuadorian and Colombian truckers can enter driving the heavy machines with export and import goods to the temporary warehouses of Tulcán and Ipiales, within a range of 11 kilometers from the border; They will not be able to enter the populated centers.

In parallel, this Wednesday afternoon, the Ministers of Transport and Public Works of Colombia, Ángela María Orozco, and Marcelo Cabrera of Ecuador, signed the reciprocal agreement that extends the hours for the passage of goods through the international bridges of Rumichaca, San Miguel and Mataje, also allows the entry of drivers to the two countries.

It is a pilot plan that will last one month and will be evaluated between January 13 and 15, 2022 to make way for the second phase, which would include the pedestrian crossing of people. The measure will end any eventuality or accident, said the Colombian minister.

“This decision by Presidents Guillermo Lasso and Iván Duque restores international cargo transportation under conditions of equity and reciprocity, allowing the entry of carriers from both nations with their vehicles to neighboring countries, within 11 km of the border cities. ”Added the Secretary of State.

In Tulcán and Ipiales they will carry out the transshipment of goods or change of head in the case of refrigerated cars, not using foreign crew members. In addition, those who have the complete anti-COVID-19 vaccination scheme will be able to do so, being an indispensable requirement that the last dose has been inoculated 15 days before.

Each driver must carry all the documents (crew card and border transport permit) established for international transport as required by the Andean Community of Nations.

Effects by accidents

Byron Erazo, driver of a last trailer overturned last Monday a few kilometers from the international pipeline, said that, complying with the protocol, he handed over his working capital to a person from the neighboring country who after having suffered an accident he would have said that nothing happened and was not responsible for the damages.

Until the afternoon of this Wednesday, no one responded for the damages and the heavy car continued in the courtyards of the Ipiales Police. “The owners of the merchandise transshipped it, left and forgot the problem,” he said.

Like him, more than ten families that make a living from international freight transport have so far not been able to solve the damage caused by Colombian drivers, who now say they have been left without work, finding some vehicles with Ecuadorian plates still being held.

Patricio Rodríguez, president of the Carchi Heavy Transport Association, said that with the cancellation of the change of crew in the half of the binational viaduct that had been in force since the beginning of the pandemic, they will protect their vehicles, which are their work tool and heritage.

The motorists asked Minister Cabrera that the opening hours be extended and that the circulation through the viaduct be 12 hours, remembering that on the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border the National Customs Service operates 24 hours a day.

Faced with the request to require the crew card, which is a kind of passport license, the leader Rodríguez clarified that they must process it in Colombia, where at the moment there would be no species for this type of procedure, for which he recommended that it be extended to the extension requested by Governor Yaco Martínez for two months. This measure caused setbacks during the morning of this Wednesday. (I)