The government continues to work on measures to reduce the smuggling on the country’s borders, now with the supergas cylinders as a specific objective, through new regulations regarding national production.
He Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM) and the Energy and Water Services Regulatory Unit (Ursea) They are working on a solution to the problem of smuggling of supergas cylinders at the border.
This situation occurs particularly with Brazil, while families in the northern departments of the country use Brazilian bottles and valves that cannot be sold in Uruguay. For this reason, the government is evaluating a new regulation which allows local companies to package bottles similar to those of the neighbouring country.
“We have found a solution that would involve establishing a differential system for the border that could supply Uruguayan gas in cylinders equal to those sold in Brazil,” said the Undersecretary of Industry, Walter Verri.
In this sense, the solution would be that the four Uruguayan companies authorized to supergas packaging They can do so in containers similar to Brazilian bottles, but only for border areas. Although there are still no specifications on how the control system for compliance with this regulation would be.
Smuggling, a government objective
Although it has been reduced with the decrease in the exchange rate gap with Argentina, Smuggling remains a problem that the government is closely monitoring. In this regard, one discussion that has taken place in this regard is the reform of the border law to expand the “powers” of the military to combat this crime, as well as other more serious crimes such as drug trafficking.
One of these “powers” would be to be able to carry out “random” checks on vehicles entering from another country, an idea that would be presented this year, according to the Minister of Defense, Armando Castaingdebat.
Currently, the army “can control to the extent that they see a suspicious vehicle,” said Castaingdebat on the program Who’s Who on Diamante FM and Channel 5. “We randomly stop 10 trucks in a row, we check it (with the military) to see what happens, as the army can do.” Police”, explained what the authorities have in mind.
The reform contemplates “some other details” in addition to border control, he said. As well as the need to be accompanied by radar leasing and buy at least three fighter planes.
Source: Ambito
