TIJUANA – Hundreds of truck and bus drivers spent Wednesday waiting in line up to eight hours to buy diesel at gas stations, which in turn were waiting for promised deliveries.
Arturo Aguirre, manager of Calfia, a public-transit company with a fleet of 1,200 buses that transports 350,000 people every day in the eastern part of Tijuana, said his drivers have waited for hours at gas stations, with some leaving empty-handed.
Joaquin Aviña, president of the Association of Gas Station Owners of Tijuana, said his group is aware that the federal government's consumer-protection agency is looking into at least 15 gas stations that are accepting bribes for the sale of fuel.
According to the association, which represents 157 gas stations in the region, this latest diesel shortage is happening because Pemex, the Mexican oil monopoly, doesn't have the necessary capacity to distribute fuel in Baja California. More than 90 percent of stations that sell diesel have run out, Aviña said, and are waiting to be resupplied.
Dozens of truck and bus drivers have waited in huge lines at stations near the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossings.
“We've been waiting for diesel since 8 a.m. They told us that Pemex has sent a tanker truck and that this gas station will have diesel. I'm going to wait,” said Moises Ibarra, 37, a driver for Correo Internacional who at 2 o'clock was in line at a gas station two blocks from the Otay Mesa crossing.
Omar Millan Gonzalez is a contributor to The Union-Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper Enlace.
