After the announcement of the mega-increase in fuels by Petrobras, José Carlos Martins, president of the CBIC (Brazilian Chamber of the Construction Industry), says that he has scheduled a meeting with industry leaders for Monday (14th) to assess whether it will be necessary to stop earthworks across the country.
This type of work is highly dependent on diesel oil and asphalt, another input supplied by the state-owned company. “Nobody will stand the price increase”, says Martins.
He states that earthworks, unlike building a house, for example, require less labor and more equipment such as trucks, patrols and tractors, which use fuel.
Last year, the skyrocketing value of asphalt provoked a wave of requests to renegotiate the construction companies’ contracts with the government.
“Some years ago, the works stopped when the price of asphalt went up too much. There were people with 50% of the cost of the asphalt. And it took two years to convince TCU and DNIT that they needed to readjust these works. A lot of people broke”, says Martins.
Another concern, according to him, is that the contracts of service providers with the government can only be changed annually, that is, those who have already readjusted January and February will not be able to adjust the high costs.
Joana Wedge with Andressa Motter and Ana Paula Branco
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