Bolivian president Luis Arce announced on June 12th, that military personnel would carry out control work at different service stations in the country.

Proof of the effectiveness of this collaboration is the non-existence of lines of vehicles that occupied several blocks just a week ago. “Our Armed Forces give us protection as an institution, even at the service station, so that fluidity and marketing can be seen with greater transparency,” said the executive general director of the ANH, Germán Jiménez.

Jiménez stated in an interview with the Bolivia TV state channel that the control at fuel sales stations has already yielded important results against speculators, as happened in Yacuiba, department of Tarija, where a vehicle with an illegal load of fuel was detected.

The official said that national transit on the border and abroad reached 22 million liters of diesel and more than 12 million liters of gasoline. “In sum, we have a thousand tankers (with fuel) both in national border and foreign transit that are entering the country and that has to guarantee supply to the internal market,” he said.

The sales price of fuel in the national market is several times lower than in countries across the border from Bolivia due to the subsidy policy applied by the national government for the benefit of all Bolivians.

An intelligence operation on May 21st resulted in the intervention of a “clandestine mini plant” of diesel in El Alto, and the seizure of six fuel tanks with a total volume of around 3.6 million liters, valued at 15 million bolivianos (more than two million dollars).

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