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October 08, 2020 – 10:49 am
Newsroom of El País
With a majority positive vote, the Cali Council approved in a second debate the draft agreement that authorizes the Cali Mayor’s Office to seek public credit for up to 650 billion pesos to finance projects of the Development Plan that allow the economic reactivation of the capital of the Valley, after the impact of the pandemic.
The project was approved as a district agreement with 19 positive votes and only two negative votes, and will be approved by Mayor Jorge Iván Ospina.
With this green light from the Cabildo, the Mayor’s Office will be able to seek financing for 19 large projects of the District Development Plan with which it hopes to generate 117 thousand jobs.
The credit must be fixed for a term of 10 years and the issuance of domestic public debt bonds for up to 15 years.
These projects include the San Fernando Technological Park, the Corazón de Pance Ecopark, the Pacific Park, the San Antonio Boulevard, road repair projects, entrepreneurship and public policies, among others.
The second debate took place without major unforeseen events or relevant changes to how previous studies and debates on the agreement unfolded.
In fact, the 6 articles of the draft agreement were approved with a majority of positive votes. The negative votes to the report of the presentation were made by councilors Roberto Ortiz and Diana Rojas.
“Thanks to all the Councilors of our beloved Cali for approving the debt quota in the last debate. Now it is up to us to work vigorously for the economic reactivation,” Mayor Jorge Iván Ospina wrote on Twitter.
Read here: Projects for which the Mayor’s Office asks for a millionaire loan would be ‘raw’
The director of the Municipal Finance, Fulvio Leonardo Soto, indicated that “from this initiative, we seek to be consistent with the Development Plan, where the energizing projects of Cali were left in the short, medium and long term.”
Miltón Catrillón, one of the councilors who spoke about the project, explained that the economic reactivation plan not only requires the capital obtained with loans and bonds, but also with the resources of the Mayor’s Office of Cali and the co-financing that is achieved from management with the departmental and national government.
“The authorization approved to the Mayor is a tool to maneuver the procurement of resources, but we are not approving a works plan, except for a budget for the District, what we gave the Mayor is an instrument that must return to the Council with the detail of the works ”, indicated Castrillón.
The critics
Councilor Diana Rojas was one of the few critics of the draft agreement and emphasized during the studies and debates that in her opinion, the project should include the specific works with which the public credit that was authorized to the Administration would be financed.
“I voted negatively on the second debate presentation of the draft agreement authorizing 650 billion pesos of indebtedness to the mayor, since it does not leave clarity to the citizens about the projects and the terms of the credit,” said Rojas on Twitter .
His proposal to include the specific projects in the final text of the draft agreement had 19 negative votes and only two positive votes, his and that of Councilor Alexandra Hernández.
And during the reading of his record, he said in the debate that “with the approval, the Mayor can use the credit for any project of the development plan, without them implying economic reactivation.”
‘Raw’ projects
Several of the projects with which the Mayor’s Office will seek to reactivate the city economically are in the study stage or do not have them.
This was pointed out by the coordinator of the Cali Visible Observatory, Lina Orozco, who in dialogue with El País said “if they are going to bet on very expensive projects that are just in the design and pre-feasibility stage, they will not generate economic reactivation.”
For example, the Cali Smart City project could only be seen in 2022, since for now studies are underway for the project model designs and the construction of the Smart Building, which would be located next to where the bunker will be built. Prosecutor’s Office, between races 10 and 12 with streets 12 and 13, downtown.
“The purchase of the land would cost us $ 7,500 million, but to that we have to add $ 122 million for social management and deed values for $ 128 million, a process that will take until December and then do the demolitions, for a value of $ 400 million, and deliver the land in June 2021, “said Yecid Cruz, manager of the Municipal Urban Renovation Company, Emru.
Another project that does not yet have pre-feasibility studies is Parque Pacífico, a space for holding cultural and gastronomic events that would cost $ 50 billion.
The pre-feasibility studies for this project would be carried out in the first quarter of 2021 and the works, which would take 18 months, would begin in the second half of that year, so the Park would be ready in the first quarter of 2023.
Watch the debate again:
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