The mobilizations and blockades due to the national strike last month caused a significant delay in infrastructure works that were nearing completion.
This month the entire Cruce de la Cordillera Central project, better known for its masterpiece, the La Línea tunnel, was to be inaugurated. In September 2020, the Government put into service a part of the 60-unit complex between short tunnels, dual carriageways, bridges and interchanges and promised that by April this year Colombians would be able to make use of the infrastructure in its entirety.
We recommend: A country with stranded transport
This term was extended “to the first semester of 2021”, but finally it could not be fulfilled, because for a month there were no workers in the area. What happened? A national strike was decreed. This same situation was repeated in dozens of road infrastructure projects that were in full reactivation, since the limitations due to the pandemic already allowed them to work in mid-gear.
More than a month has passed since a national strike was called, which has been accompanied by mobilizations, roadblocks, ports, excesses and vandalism. Progressively and in some areas of the country, public order has been reestablished, but the extent of the demonstrations in time and severity ended up affecting the development of infrastructure projects underway.
The 3,000 workers from the Central Cordillera Crossing remained outside the project until May 26, when the protesters who had set up barricades at the only two access points (Cajamarca, Tolima, and Calarcá, Quindío) agreed to let them pass . That day the director of Invías and a group of experts from the construction firm and the auditing firm entered to review the state of the infrastructure.
During this period, 37 events were registered along the road in which three points were particularly affected by the lack of permanent intervention required by the type of soil in the area: kilometer 37, in the Cinabrio sector, due to landslides; kilometer 39, Bellavista sector, also due to landslides, and the Yarumo Blanco bridge, which had damage to the components of the structure.
The entity commissioned a comprehensive diagnosis that will be ready next week, given that some tasks that had to be dealt with constantly, such as slope maintenance, were interrupted. Invías is also working on a new roadmap to achieve the stabilization and conclusion of the project.
Also read: Closure of the Cajamarca-Calarcá highway: a landslide was added to the blockades
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google News“The work of the Crossing of the Central Cordillera will have effects on the delivery date, scheduled for the first semester of this year, because there have been phenomena associated with the total abandonment of the work during this month and that, without doubt, it generated a deterioration, since the work was not completely finished ”, explained the director of the entity, Juan Esteban Gil.
Juan Martín Caicedo, president of the Colombian Chamber of Infrastructure (CCI), warned of two phenomena that he described as worrisome and that are a direct consequence of blockades and acts of vandalism, mainly at toll booths, both on public roads and concessions, where the collection has been stolen and everything has been destroyed.
“There have been delays in various stabilization works, which are those aimed at addressing the problems that arise due to the landslides. In several departments, mainly in Cauca, Putumayo and Nariño, they do not allow the equipment and machinery required to collect the debris to enter and this has generated delays for the roads to start operating properly, ”he said.
The ICC warned in the past about the effects of unemployment on public goods and shortages. Its president also insisted on the consequences for the less favored people: “Unfortunately, with these blockades, those who are experiencing the worst part are the people with lower incomes, peasants and farmers who find themselves tied when transporting their products; families that, due to the increase in the prices of the basic food basket, today cannot access the minimum vital food, humble workers who stopped exercising their activities, as well as young students who have not been able to return to their colleges or schools. And not to mention the seriousness of not being able to transport those who demand urgent access to health services ”.
Also read: Valle del Cauca road network: first 5G highway awarded in Colombia
For its part, the entity in charge of the infrastructure given in concession to third parties, the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI), has received reports of several paralyzed concessions, but so far it has not officially reported delays or modifications in the schedules. However, El Espectador was able to confirm with several builders that there will be repercussions in time and money.
The roads most affected are precisely those in the southwest of Colombia. On the Pacífico Tres highway connection project, a 146-kilometer highway that benefits 19 municipalities in Antioquia, Caldas and Risaralda, the works have been suspended for several weeks. At the peak of the protest, seven blocking points were reported that left damage and damage to the road’s tread layer, not to mention the breakdowns in the three tolls in charge of (Supía, Irra and Acapulco in Caldas) after the fire caused by some protesters, a fact that is being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office and that so far has left six people captured.
According to the Pacífico Tres concession, the effects are of the order of $ 5,000 million, not counting what will imply the suspension of tolls collection for one week, the reduction of 80% in normal traffic, the decrease in work performance due to of the disturbances of public order, the problems of supplying fuel, steel and concrete, necessary for the execution of works, and the inconveniences with the transport of machinery and personnel to their jobs.
They have also suffered from the lack or delay in supplies on the Pacífico Uno connection highway, run by Covipacífico. “A few days ago there was a lot of inventory and every day new restrictions are being generated to the extent that these inventories are exhausted and we are already dependent on the supply,” said Mauricio Millán, manager of the firm.
For its part, KMA Constructores reported difficulties with a project in which it is a shareholder in Antioquia, Autopistas del Nordeste, and with the ongoing works at the Nuquí (Chocó) and Pasto (Nariño) airports. In their particular case, the blockades on the Pan-American highway and the disconnection of the port of Buenaventura have prevented them from obtaining supplies to continue the work, so they made the decision to advance the holidays to the workers so as not to have to make cuts and to request certificates. suspension of work at Aerocivil so as not to affect the schedule, since they had promised to deliver the infrastructure before the agreed deadline.
“The port of Buenaventura has affected all the transversality of the projects, because the import cargo enters through that point. Everything that comes from Asia in raw materials and machinery is withheld. Importing companies are assuming very high cost overruns for what the ports charge them; after a while the storage costs become unsustainable, this is a general problem throughout the country ”, said the president of KMA Constructores, Menzel Amín.
This information was confirmed by the Andi Maritime and Port Chamber. According to the director, Carolina Herrera, there are about 1.6 million tons of dammed merchandise, including 44,000 containers.
Even the Autopistas de la Sabana concession, the project between Córdoba and Sucre, had to evacuate personnel from the Las Flores-Corozal toll booth at the beginning of May, when a group of people attacked the booths, the weighing station and the customer service center. Username. Vandalism against these collection points spread throughout the country.
The problem is that the locomotive of infrastructure, as the governments themselves have insisted on calling it, does not start so easily. The start of any project is slow, because a series of activities must be coordinated that go in series. Every time there is an interruption, the inertia is broken and to resume it is as much as to start over. Under this premise, it would take two and up to three months for the projects to resume the pace they were bringing, so the promises of better roads will also remain to be seen.
