By Jhoser Bermúdez
105 projects between 2013 and 2019 are committed in those that have not been delivered or closed in the department of Cesar and that belong to the General Royalties System, SGR, according to data published by the Committee for Monitoring the Investment of Royalties in Cesar, CSIR.
Projects 2021
Astrid Navarro, technical secretary of the Monitoring Committee, said: “In 2021 alone, 111 projects have been approved between the municipalities, the Government, Corpocesar, Universidad Popular del Cesar, and other entities that manage royalty resources, all worth more than 783,000 million pesos, of which 40 are under execution and nine have been contracted without a start-up agreement”.
Among the results, it was discovered that 57 projects have not yet been contracted, with a value of 409,668,116,578 pesos, despite having been approved five to eight months ago.
In view of these delays, Navarro indicated that the recommended procedure for these projects is to have them contracted a maximum of five months later and exemplified by pointing out that if a process is approved at the beginning of March, by April at the latest the documentation process should be completed, because after this comes revisions, budget availability, etc., which lead to previous studies; however, after half a year it was evidenced that the contracts have not yet reached the aforementioned studies.
Projects 2013 – 2019
In the study conducted by the CSIR for the years between 2013 and 2019, it was revealed that 105 projects that began in the third year of the last decade have not yet been completed.
Some of the executing entities that were analyzed are the Governor’s Office of Cesar; the capital, Valledupar; municipalities such as Curumaní, El Paso, Gamarra, Agustín Codazzi, Pailitas, Pueblo Bello, San Diego, Chiriguananá, La Jagua De Ibirico, San Martín, Becerril, etc.; and corporations, companies and even the Popular University of Cesar.
28 projects are being executed by the departmental administration, including the construction of a school cafeteria on the campus of the Universidad Popular del Cesar in Valledupar; natural gas connections for strata 1 and 2 in the municipalities of Manaure, El Paso, Bosconia, El Copey, Astrea and Valledupar; recovery and conservation of areas of environmental interest to the Kankuamo indigenous people in Valledupar; among many others.
The entities and/or corporations that have the debt to finalize or close the projects are Corpoica, with the optimization of water and efficient use of soil; Aguas del Cesar, with the implementation of strategies for risk management and adaptation to climate change in rural areas in several municipalities of Cesar; Corpocesar, with the pilot demonstration project of bioremediation and environmental management in the San Alberto river, in the same municipality.
Valledupar, on the other hand, has two projects that have not yet been completed, the much-discussed Casa en el Aire and the priority housing for victims of the conflict in the Porvenir Urbanization.
In total, these projects amount to more than 775,000 million pesos between 2013 and 2019.
Unfinished projects
EL PILÓN contacted the Secretary of Infrastructure of the department, Esther Mendoza, to know the status of some projects mentioned in the study and that concern the Governor’s Office of Cesar, to this she said: “The departmental administration has no project that has not been completed, the only pending project is the CDT Pesquero that will soon be delivered, but the remaining projects are already completed”.
Due to this statement by the Infrastructure Secretariat, Navarro pointed out that one of the reasons for the session held by the CSIR was to make visible a large number of projects that remain open and that is why there are so many “white elephants” in the database of the Royalties Management System.
Likewise, the technical secretary stated that one of the details discovered in the process were the constant errors in the publication of information. He pointed out that some projects have already been completed, however, the certifying documents have never been uploaded, which affects the management indicators, which in turn causes the municipalities and the department to fall below the national average in the country.
Finally, during the presentation of the 2021 ordinary session, it was recommended to report monthly the management of each of the unfinished projects in an adequate and consistent manner; to manage the subscription of contracts for new projects during the following six months of approval; the execution horizon must be adjusted to the conditions of the territory and have a good risk matrix to reduce the impacts; to follow up and manage the time, costs and scope of the projects; and finally, to liquidate and close the terminated contracts within the stipulated timeframe.
*Taken from El Pilón.
