Leoni Roca: “Munoz spent three years trying to do what Lopez Allaga is announcing today”

The president Association for the Promotion of National Infrastructure (AFIN), Leoni Roca, indicated that Lima Mayor Rafael López Allaga would repeat the actions of his predecessor, Jorge Muñoz, who spent three years trying to negotiate terms for a highway concession in the capital. He also clarified that attacking the concession companies would be a bad sign for private investors.

“Lima recently approved the MET plan, which includes planning for how we want to see the city by 2040. According to the said plan, Lima needs an investment of 327 billion soles over the next few years.. According to the same plan, 42% of this amount should be received through private participation, because the state obviously cannot finance everything, and the municipality is experiencing a chronic, historical lack of resources. Now the question is how that 42% will be raised when we send such ambiguous, vague and arbitrary signals as attempts to return fares, which are also populist signals and have no reality,” he said in News extension from PTR.

“You have to revise history to learn from it and not repeat mistakes. Mayor Muñoz has spent three years trying to do what Mayor Lopez Allaga is announcing today.. And the result was three years in which it was not possible to move forward in investments, where uncertainty was generated among investors. The two car concessions in Lima are managed by one of the largest investment funds in the world and the world’s largest road concessionaire. If both are attacked by the municipal authorities, who should work in coordination with them, this is obviously a bad signal for any investor.”, he added.

“Item that doesn’t sell well”

Leoni Roca argued that the logic of the toll corresponds to the fact that whoever needs it must pay for the use of concession roadsas this will maintain the desired road quality standard.

“The issue of tolls is a poorly marketed item. The logic of tolls is as follows: firstly, the one who uses it pays. A resident of Cajamarca does not have to pay for the road that we, the inhabitants of Lima, take to the south or north, or the central highway.. That’s why trucking pays more, because it’s more oppressive. Who uses more, pays more. There is logic behind this. Another thing is that if the road is not maintained in accordance with the proper quality standards, then its restoration will cost you seven times more than its proper construction and maintenance,” he concluded.