Student: Juan David Peña Pecho

CIV: 25518368

Activity 2. English II

Problem

The economic and social crisis that Venezuelan is going through, intensified

in the last 7 years, has managed to transcend and impact the most important sectors

in the country such as health, education, transportation, etc. In relation to the public

transportation sector, the deterioration of its units and with it its daily operation has

become more and more noticeable.

According to information provided by Ostos (2020) in the newspaper Infobae,

80% of transport is currently paralyzed. While a total of 650 thousand that are

registered with the Institute of Land Transport, only 125 thousand units are in

operation. With respect to this, the director of the users' committee, Luis Alberto

Salazar, added: "This decrease in the car fleet began five years ago, since the drop

in production of the automotive sector was pronounced, due to the absence of

foreign currency for the import of raw materials that supply the local industries.

(quoted by Ostos, 2019, p. 2).

In addition, inflation and an imminent devaluation of the Bolivar has directly

led to a decrease in automotive parts and a shortage of such parts, making it

increasingly difficult for unit owners to have access to them and to properly maintain

the units. They are forced to resort to other means to keep their units in permanent

circulation, or choose to use cars that are not intended for public transportation such

as the so-called "kennels" in order to comply and cover the routes where they

provide the service.

 Consequently, the lack of public service has directly affected Venezuelan

society because it is a means frequently used by those who must travel daily,

whether on internal, external, urban or extra-urban routes. This has created a

problem not only for those who provide the service, that is, the owners of the units,

but also for the population in general, who use this system in their daily lives to be

able to go to their jobs, schools, homes, etc.

Solution

First of all, it is necessary that the responsible authorities have the

willingness and commitment to work and focus on finding a prompt solution, since

this is a problem largely due to the generalized crisis that Venezuela is going

through, and which surpasses the willingness of a few to provide effective solutions.

Consequently, there is a need for joint cooperation involving the national

government, the Land Transport Institute (INTT), cooperatives belonging to the

public transport union and the user in general who also receive a direct impact from

the lack of service. The purpose of this is to establish, through meetings and

consultations with users and unit owners, the steps to be followed to guarantee an

accurate exit from the transportation crisis, by means of which the damage to those

in operation can be assessed and at the same time the number of buses needed to

fully cover each route registered in the country can be determined.

In this regard, as indicated by Ostos (2019) in the Infobae newspaper, it is

estimated that:

(...) in order to recover transportation in the cities and the connection

with routes throughout the country, "which at present is non-existent, it
is required to invest some 2,500,000,000 (two and a half billion dollars)
to start rescuing the Venezuelan transportation sector, with the
incorporation of 20,000 units, in addition to guaranteeing technical
 support. Each unit costs about 80,000 dollars in the international
market. In the first stages of a plan of this type it will be necessary to
import vehicles" (p. 8)

Considering that we are in an economy with very changing prices and that this

was said in the year 2019, the situation would have to be re-evaluated, as already

mentioned, in order to provide a joint and updated solution to the problem.

Bibliographic references:

Ostos, Elizabeth (November 20, 2019) Public transportation in Venezuela functions

at minimum capacity and forces citizens to use "kennels" as an alternative.
Infobae​. Retrieved
from:https://normasapa.com/como-referenciar-articulos-de-periodico/#:~:text=
ELEMENTS%3A-,Nombre%3A%20Se%20pone%20el%20primer%20last
name%20followed%20of%20the%20initials,en%20la%20portada%20del%20
peri%C3%B3dico.