Argentine Customs carried out an inspection at the fluvial terminal of Madero Port in which Buquebus operates before “irregularities warned in their fleet”, and resolved the interdiction of the Eladia Isabel due to the fact that their navigability certificates were expired. Faced with this, the ship was disaffected from the “special regime of means of transport”, without the right to use or transfer, according to what is established in the Custom code from the neighboring country.
In turn, and according to Argentine media reports, the agency dependent on the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP) pointed out the “painful state” of the ship; and above all its “extremely deteriorated” furniture of the ship that has been operating and transporting passengers between Argentina and Uruguay for 16 years.
As a consequence, Customs ordered Cypresses SA —the company name of Buquebus in Argentine territory— to re-export the ship before July 9.
Buquebus, in the eye of the storm
This is not the first problem Buquebus has had in recent weeks. Recently, in May, the company was harmed by a judicial ruling of the Argentine Justice that inhibited the company by 112.5 million pesos for the “improper use of funds” from the Emergency Work and Production Assistance Program (ATP) that the Argentine government implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic to maintain the payment of salaries.
AFIP had sued Buquebus for failing to comply with the regulation implemented by the ATP and asked for 63 million pesos that it received from the program, plus interest, after having bought dollars in the bag in November 2020, an operation that they considered “incompatible” with adherence to the support plan.
Likewise, and less time ago, the scandal arose when Uruguayan passengers seeking to cross into Argentina to watch the final of the Sub 20 world They were affected because one of the company’s ships did not set sail on Saturday the 10th and caused a wait of more than 12 hours.
After the problems caused by the non-departure of the ship in question, Buquebus issued a statement on Monday to provide explanations for what happened.
“On Saturday June 10, while our ship Atlantic II ready to set sail on your frequency from Cologne toward Buenos Aires At 8:30 p.m., the arrival of a cold front with strong winds from the WSW sector [oeste-suroeste], scheduled from the 3 hour of Sunday. Buquebus, faithful to its philosophy maintained during its more than 40 years of experience, prioritized the safety of its passengers above all else. Assuming that the wind forecast had been advanced approximately five hours, and that according to current forecasts it would last three to four hours, the departure was scheduled between 1 and 3 on Sunday,” the company said.
In this line, Buquebus added that “the winds increased and lasted throughout the night, until morning.”
Source: Ambito
