Delays in the appointment of governors, slow processes within the ministries and the lack of attention to requests from municipal governments are the reasons why mayors announce that a large part of this year’s projects will remain pending. The councillors point out that the Executive has focused on other priorities far from execution.
The president of the National Association of Municipalities (ANAM), Sebastián Siero, commented that different mayors have conveyed criticism to the entity regarding delays in disbursements for projects and scarce channels of communication with officials in Bernardo Arévalo’s cabinet.
“The problem here is that the mayors, the more than 250 who are new, have already started, but in the Executive, it is not that they are not getting closer, but the majority of the ministries remain at a standstill,” said Siero.
In this regard, he added that requests have been made to some ministries, especially the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing (CIV) for road repairs before the rainy season, but they have not received a response from the head of the ministry.
“The work they are doing is really disappointing. It seems like they are focused on other things and not necessarily on what is important,” criticised Siero, who insisted that they are not getting solutions from the central government.
Although he indicated that the support he has received from the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred) has been very positive and he described the attitude of the officials of said institution as being different from that of the officials of the cabinet, with respect to the responses to the requests of the municipal leaders.
The mayor of San Manuel Chaparrón in Jalapa, Ricardo Sandoval, stated that the levels of execution in the southeastern region, of which he is a representative before the National Council for Urban and Rural Development (Conadur) are low and warns that around 86 projects will be lost for not having met the requirements in time.
“It affected the appointment of governors, who at the same time cover the function of presidents of the Departmental Development Council (Codede). The function they exercise is important. So far, the levels of execution in the region are low precisely because of that situation and also because, unfortunately, some municipalities have not made their respective planning as they should have,” he explained.
In this regard, Carlos Say, mayor of San Cristóbal Totonicapán and representative of the southwestern region, also said that it is necessary to decentralize the process of endorsing projects granted by the ministries because it is in this phase that delays occur.
Guadalupe Reyes, mayor of Palencia and representative of the metropolitan region in Conadur, added his concern about the execution of the projects and said that the municipalities and development councils might not finish executing the works and the funds might be redirected.
“I think that time has passed, valuable time has been lost. There will be many resources from the central government that will end up in the common fund for the work of the municipalities,” warned the mayor of Palencia.
Siero explained that in several departments there are differences between the governors and the executive or financial directors of the departmental councils, which results in delays affecting the works.
“The main complaint I’ve heard about governors is that there is some kind of communication gap between the governor and the director, whether executive or financial, of the board,” Siero said.
The Ministry of Finance was asked for the amounts pending transfer to the Codedes of Jalapa and Totonicapán and, if there were delays, the reasons for them, but the query was not obtained before the closing of this edition.
Political disputes
Reyes also emphasized that the start of the government was atypical compared to past administrations. He stated that there is little rapprochement with President Arévalo and his cabinet, which has been the result of political clashes.
“There has been a coldness in the relationship between the government and local governments, that is my case, I really cannot say that we have all the support because this confrontation that has occurred at the level of national politics is what ends up being detrimental to the development of the municipalities,” reiterated Mayor Reyes.
This broad confrontation, which has been mostly with Congress, and this lack of synergy has caused delays in municipal management.
At the last Conadur meeting in June, representatives of civil society and mayors made the president aware of the need to obtain concrete solutions to the situations they expressed to him and not just responses based on speeches. The three mayors who make up the Council responded that this aspect remains the same.
“Communication with the Executive has been quite good, but there are no results, it has been of no use. I think they have lacked a bit of executive management, of responding to whatever is proposed,” said Say.
Presidential Commission
The mayors also said they disagree with the management of the Presidential Commission for Municipal Affairs (Copresam), arguing that there have been approaches, but that they have not been the best. In addition, they said that more specific and technical issues could be addressed by the entity.
“There have been approaches, but I think we have not reached more specific terms. Topics have been grouped in a very general way. So, I think we should move forward with more specific issues, especially with the execution of projects, which is worrying,” said Sandoval.
A request was also made to the Secretariat of Social Communication of the Presidency regarding the statements made by the municipal leaders, but no response was received.
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