Paraguay's Chamber of Deputies shelves bill to end mandatory driver's license fees

The president of Paraguay's Chamber of Deputies, Raúl Latorre, has shelved a bill that sought to eliminate mandatory fees collected for driver's licenses, a move critics say shields a lucrative and opaque revenue stream for the Paraguayan Organization for Intermunicipal Cooperation (Opaci).

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the president of Deputies, Raúl Latorre, excluded from the agenda for the next Tuesday's ordinary session the bill that aims to eliminate the compulsory collection of G. 10,000 from each citizen who processes their driver's license, which adds up to a millionaire fund that goes to the hands of the Paraguayan Organization for Intermunicipal Cooperation (Opaci), giving the possibility of an automatic sanction.

Latorre, a member of the ruling Colorado Party, removed the bill from the agenda for an upcoming session. The legislation would have stopped Opaci, a non-governmental organization run by politicians, from collecting fees that have generated approximately 138 billion Paraguayan guaranis (about $22 million USD) in the last five years solely from driver's licenses.

Opposition lawmakers had proposed the bill, arguing that the National Transit and Road Safety Agency (ANTSV) should manage the driver's license system. However, the article suggests complicity, stating that ANTSV made excuses to maintain the status quo. Deputies from Latorre's faction, Honor Colorado, have defended Opaci, which is led by Óscar Cabrera, the mayor of Guarambaré. Opaci's revenue is reportedly derived from providing plastic cards for licenses and managing a unified database system.

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in the last 5 years (2020-2025) Opaci collected G. 138,000 million only for collection of driver's licenses, which represents a little more than double what the Prosecutor's Office is now investigating as possible patrimonial damage to the Social Welfare Institute (IPS).

The article highlights the lack of transparency in Opaci's financial management, noting that as a non-governmental entity, it avoids standard state oversight. The decision to freeze the bill is seen by opponents as a deliberate effort by the ruling party to protect this financial scheme.

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this freezing and therefore shielding of Opaci's collection scheme by the Colorado Party was already intuited from the position of Honor Colorado deputies who came out to defend the 'friendly NGO' of the ruling party.