SANTO DOMINGO.- The president of the Dominican truckers grouped in Fenatrado - one of three major unions popularly known as the country’s “owners”- today said they’ll stop their units the first five days in January for maintenance and not as a protest.

Blas Peralta said the truck drivers union doesn’t have a freight monopoly and attributed that version to sectors "incapable" of providing a better service than theirs.

He cautioned Fenatrado would paralyze all the country’s ports if the authorities didn’t intervene in their conflict with the company Industria San Miguel del Caribe, maker of the soft drink Real Kola, which he refused to assign the quota to its members to transport the freight from the northwest province Santiago Rodriguez. "When we say we’ll paralyze the units after the Epiphany, it’ll not be in the ports, but for repairs, to paint and to do maintenance at the shops, and we’ll leave the ports empty so those who have two or three trucks can eat their fill of transporting."

The union leader said the industrialists and the Government must understand that Fenatrado is one “one of the national economy’s wings,” and won’t be “marginalized.” He said neither the Government nor anybody can force them or ban them from stopping their trucks for maintenances.

Peralta said Fenatrado and Real Kola already reached an agreement with the truck drivers from Santiago Rodriguez, after they blocked that company’s plant.