Bolivian truckers and farmers are facing problems with their businesses as a result of fuel reforms, according to this article on the BBC News website, and they are blaming President Evo Morales and his reforms.

They say that the reforms, which included nationalising refineries last year, have cause shortages at the pumps. Hence a trucker cannot get enough diesel for one day’s work and farmers cannot get enough to run their machines.

One theory is that the fuel is so cheap, that it is being smuggled our of the country. The report claims that armed border guards are not trying to prevent this, whilst fuel is having to be imported from Venezuela to meet demands (or not, as the case my be).

A petrol station in Sucre – without the queues – in July 2000

In the past, Bolivia has benefited from pipelines exporting resources such as gas to other countries in South America.

What has gone so terribly wrong, that it is now unable to provide enough fuel for it’s own people? The knock-on effects are simple – if a farmer cannot harvest his crops and a trucker cannot deliver the produce then it is only a matter of time before there are shortages throughout the country in the shops and markets. At that point it will be traders and consumers who also start to suffer…

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 17th, 2007 at 4:10 pm and is filed under News, Santa Cruz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.