According to the vice-president of Atroma, Licínio Fernandes, a meeting was held this Tuesday to address the situation of Angolan truck drivers with difficulties traveling in neighboring DRCongo, but it was marked by the absence of the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT) of the Ministry of Transport.
Licínio Fernandes said that Atroma's executive board has assured its members not to stop their activity.
"But this is about to explode", said the person responsible, speaking to Lusa, highlighting that they have been asking the executive to find ways for Congolese truck drivers to enter Angola in the same way that Angolans enter DRCongo.
According to the vice-president of Atroma, Angolan truck drivers pay 60 dollars to enter the neighboring country, while their Congolese colleagues need to wait for an entry visa, which takes 15 to 20 days.
"This hinders the operational situation of their logistics. What is happening now, [is that] the Congolese, due to bitter situations they have already had, banned the Angolans from going to Kinshasa", he stressed.
Angolan truck drivers are now forced to unload goods at the border, asking for reciprocity, "as hundreds of containers leave the country daily from the port of Luanda to Kinshasa".
"They are asking for reciprocity regarding visas. We entered without a visa, they also want to enter without a visa, if that doesn't happen, we will be forced to have an entry visa", he said.
"We are not receiving an answer to this, we continue to wait for the Presidential Decree that has already been delivered since July 1st (...) and no steps have been taken," he added.
The vice-president of Atroma said that the Congolese transporters' association gave the Congolese authorities just one day to ban Angolans from entering. After the request was refused, they carried out a five-day strike and "the Government responded automatically".
"We are going to make the last document - we are in the third letter - asking the Minister of Transport for a meeting, we are going to make the third request with ultimatums, with dates, because, if not, the class will stop and Atroma's management will not have the strength to support the stop," he said.
"Believe me that if Angolan transporters stop from Cabinda to Cunene it will be a collapse for our economy", he said, reinforcing that, given the slowness with which the matter is being dealt with, this hypothesis "is not far off".
In this meeting with the minister, Atroma intends to present its concerns and suggestions for the problem, "so that a less good situation does not happen".
The situation has been going on for eight years, and Angolan truck drivers have been banned from arriving in the Congolese capital for six months.
"We have already had a strike, our truck drivers leave with logistics prepared to make a five-day trip, they did it 15 days, and there was no helping hand either here in Angola or on the Congo side", he stressed.
Recently, more than 400 Angolan trucks were stranded in the DRCongo for more than fifteen days, having been prevented by the Congolese authorities from crossing the border towards the province of Cabinda, which is separated from the rest of Angolan territory, being limited to the north by the Republic of Congo, to the east and south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean.
Following a complaint from the government, Congolese authorities announced the end of the ban on the circulation of cargo transport trucks in DRCongo bound for Cabinda.
