The two ANI lawsuits for freezing toll rates in 2023 - Sectors

The reduction of the tolls of Cerritos II and Circasia began to take effect.

The demands were presented by the concessionaires Vías del Nus and Ruta al Mar. They have not been admitted.

In January of this year, the National Government used to freeze the rates of 143 tolls in order to give relief to Colombians. But, as detected by the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, This decision opened the door for the affected concessionaires to sue the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI)..

The first was presented on May 17 by Vías del Nus, a 157.4-kilometer 4G highway between the municipalities of Bello and Maceo, in the department of Antioquia.

He says that by December 2024 he will have a financial imbalance of 80,000 million pesos due to this freezing and that is why he is asking that the State pays you the sum of money that you stop collecting or that the contract is liquidated, which could cost about 2.3 billion pesos.

The second lawsuit was established by the Ruta al Mar Concession, which is in charge of the Antioquia-Bolívar project. In addition to the inconveniences it is facing because it was unable to raise its toll rates, it also alleges damages due to the non-installation of the Caimanera toll and due to the mandatory preventive isolation decreed by the Government during the covid-19 pandemic.

Former President Gaviria affirms that the measure to freeze the value of tolls sows uncertainty and should not be repeated in the future.

This lawsuit was filed on June 23 and, like that of Vías del Nus, It is still pending to be admitted.

The background of these two lawsuits is that, as they are private initiatives, they cannot receive public resources because this is prohibited by the Infrastructure Law (Law 1682 of 2013) and so far there is no legal validity in Colombia for the State to I can replace the money they will stop receiving due to the freezing of tolls.

Therefore, even if the National Government has secured 500,000 million pesos in the budget reduction to make these payments, it is still uncertain how and when they will be made.