Bolsonaro needs to have courage and change Petrobras prices, says truck drivers leader

President of the Brazilian Association of Motor Vehicle Drivers (Abrava) and leader of the 2018 truck drivers’ strike, Wallace Landim told CNN This Tuesday (8) that President Jair Bolsonaro “needs to have courage” and change Petrobras’ pricing policy.

Known as Chorão, the leader of the truck drivers formally asked the federal government a few days ago to end the international parity of the value of oil to readjust fuels in the domestic market.

“How long are we going to be tied to the international price? The president needs to have the courage to withdraw parity. It took too long to do that. The people have been suffering for three years,” Chorão told CNN.

The truck drivers’ leader says he hopes that Bolsonaro’s statements regarding a possible change in Petrobras’ pricing policy will, in fact, come to fruition. “We have to remember that the Brazilian people don’t get paid in dollars,” he said.

On Monday morning (7), Bolsonaro said that the international parity of oil prices is the result of “wrong legislation” and that passing on the increase in the barrel of oil to the consumer is “inadmissible”. The president also said that the government was seeking a solution “in a very responsible way”. “If you are going to pass all this on to the price of fuel, you have to increase fuel by around 50%. It’s not acceptable,” the president said.

Chorão, who led the strike during the Michel Temer government (MDB), also rejected the effectiveness of a temporary fuel price subsidy program, like the one implemented by Temer in 2018 to end the strike. “We are not looking for a new subsidy. We want a solution.”