Councilors of Rio Branco, in Acre, approve a R$11.1 million subsidy for the city’s only public transport company

Value is part of the complementary bill, which was dismembered and sent to the House by the city hall

MICHELLE SOUZA

The councilors of Rio Branco, in Acre, approved, this Tuesday, November 14, 2023, the transfer of R$11 million to the Ricco Transportes Company in the form of a subsidy for 2024. This amount is part of the complementary bill, which was dismembered and forwarded by the city hall to the Legislative House. There were 12 votes in favor and two against.

According to the document, according to the number of tickets from October to December 2023, the increase in the value of the subsidy results in an amount of more than R$7.7 million. However, as there is still a balance, the amount requested in the PL was more than R$1.2 million.

The budgetary and financial impact will be R$ 11.1 million per year, between 2024 and 2025, following the same projection of passages made in 2023. The project also says that RBTrans will carry out, every 30 days, a periodic assessment , regarding the impact of the subsidy, through a review of the value.

The text that requests the change of the temporary tariff subsidy for Urban Collective Public Transport from R$ 1.45 to R$ 2.63, to guarantee the maintenance of the R$ 3.50 fare, was delivered to the Chamber with a request to be voted on urgently, this Tuesday morning. The urgent request was made after Ricco Transportes, the only company operating in the capital, announced that it would “return” 13 lines last Friday (10).

The city hall had already sent a project that requested authorization to take out a loan worth R$41 million that would be allocated to the Municipal Transport and Traffic Superintendence (RBTrans), on the 9th, but the management decided to remove the PL from the agenda.

Public transport in Rio Branco faces a long-standing crisis. On December 20, 2021, Mayor Tião Bocalom declared an emergency situation in public transport in Rio Branco for 120 days, and this forced the three companies to keep the entire fleet in circulation.

In February 2022, the company Ricco Transportes took over, on an emergency basis, the 31 lines that were abandoned by Auto Viação Floresta. The contract was signed on the 8th of the same month.
In May 2022, the company Ricco, which already operated 64% of the lines, began to take control of them all and incorporated several buses already used by other companies in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

The following month, June 2022, Ricco Transporte announced that it requested termination of the contract with the city of Rio Branco and that it would only operate in the city until July 27, 2022. The company claimed losses of R$40 thousand per day and the situation was only resolved after the City Hall presented and the City Council approved a complementary bill worth approximately R$8 million for the subsidy of R$1.45 for each passenger transported in Rio Branco.

In the previous year, it is worth highlighting that, in October 2021, the city hall had already made another transfer in the amount of R$2.4 million to companies operating at the time. In this case, the contribution was granted through a reduction in the fare value, from 4 reais to 3.50. As a result, the transfers and subsidies made by management to companies already exceed R$10 million.

The contract with Ricco was extended for another six months, in August of this year. At the time, the city council said that this was necessary because it was still making the final adjustments to the notice for the city’s public transport tender. The notice was only published this Monday (13) in the Official State Gazette (DOE).

On Friday (10), the company announced that it intended to return 13 lines to the city hall.
According to the city hall, the statement is a device that can be activated when the company requests a renegotiation of the contract, RBTrans claims that the company should not remove the cars before 30 days.

The municipal secretary of Management, Jonathan Santiago, stated that the adjustment request will be covered by the loan project presented by the city hall, but which was removed from the agenda at the City Council last week.

Michelle Souza, for Diário do Transporte