Late 1985, 40 years ago. José Richa, then governor of Paraná, on the platform with municipal, state and federal political agents, inaugurates the section of the duplication of the road that leads to the Iguaçu National Park. The length of the work: from Vila Yolanda to the Argentina junction. Presidents José Sarney and Raúl Alfonsín opened the Tancredo Neves Bridge for the passage.
Four decades, at least, therefore, can be calculated as the time frame in which Foz do Iguaçu demands the duplication of the Cataratas Highway, one of the main tourist corridors in the trinational region. Over the last 25 years, the investment has been promised. On September 29, 2022, the project began to take shape.
The question that now looms, like a whisper of the usual ghosts that haunt the city when the subject is large public projects, is when and under what conditions the work will be completed. The construction company responsible, Dalba, is filing for bankruptcy protection, under alleged economic crisis.
The Department of Highways (DER/PR), a state government agency, guarantees that there will be no strike, without providing details on how it can support this statement, given Dalba's appeal to the courts. What is certain is that the contractor was already carrying out the duplication work at a slow pace, “slowly almost stopping”, in plain Portuguese.
Unlike other interventions, the construction company practically converted the 8,7 kilometers of the Cataratas Highway, between the Argentina interchange and the park, into a service area. For more than two years, it has impacted the movement of residents and workers from hotels, attractions and the airport. Insufficient signage and lighting, which makes the road dangerous, are also on the list of complaints.
The unfinished construction work makes life difficult for tourists. At the end of the year, there were lines of almost ten kilometers to get to the park that houses the international Iguaçu Falls. On the last holiday weekend, when there was a record number of visitors to Foz do Iguaçu, there was a traffic jam that took up to two hours to get to the attraction, the main attraction in Três Fronteiras and Paraná.
Politicians often piggyback on achievements that are not theirs. A state deputy from outside the state received a municipal grant to represent the city in the Legislative Assembly. Governor Ratinho Junior's leader is a frequent presence on the border. State and federal parliamentarians display their voter registration cards from Foz do Iguaçu. One wonders what they are doing to ensure the pace and completion of the Cataratas Highway in Foz do Iguaçu.
Now I ask, is it a lot of incompetence or a lot of competence? Would it be the company's incompetence or a lot of competence in fraud? I answer a lot of competence after the change of directors at Itaipu.
There will be a lot of talk but little will be done... they won't stop but the pace will be close to zero and it will be us who will suffer and not them... sad reality.
The State government does not show these blunders in its advertisements... and look, Itaipu passed on the money for the work, which was the most complicated part, in full.
It's a shame that politicians in the city and state lack commitment to demand agility in this work. When it comes to asking for votes, they are champions.