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After three months of studies, doubts and speculation, the Mayor of Medellín revealed the scope of the administrative reform that it will determine the functioning of various branches of local government over the next few years.
Over the last few days, through a series of formal events, the Mayor’s Office formalized the creation of seven new agencies: two secretariats, five undersecretaries, three managements and a special administrative unit.
Within the secretariats, as established in Decree 0863 of 2020, the Non-Violence Secretariat and the Digital Innovation Secretariat will emerge.
In the case of the first, which in March was projected as a Peace Management, it will be a unit in charge of leading the processes of territorial peace building and responding for the programs of attention to victims and former combatants. In the same way, he will have under his influence a research team that will study urban conflict.
(In context: The debate behind the creation of the Medellín Peace Department)
In the case of Digital Innovation, its function will be to implement the software valley programmatic line, one of the flagship promises of the current government. Both secretariats, in turn, will imply the creation of four other undersecretaries.
On the management side, the municipality will have three new ones. A management of strategic projects and two others who will assume functions of the Social Inclusion Secretariat.
Regarding Strategic Projects, one of the offices that will concentrate the greatest power, its function will be to supervise all the dependencies of the municipality, including decentralized entities, to verify that they meet the goals of the Municipal Development Plan, being able to intervene in the policies of any entity when it considers that they are not going the way indicated.
The remaining two will be the Ethnicities management, in charge of implementing inclusion programs for the Afro-descendant population. and indigenous; and an LGBTIQ + management, which will coordinate the implementation of public policy for the recognition of sexual diversity and gender identities.
This is how the LGBTIQ + management was presented:
Finally, the decree included the creation of the Undersecretariat of Animal Protection, which will unify the policies related to the management of domestic and wild fauna; and the Special Administrative Unit Good Start, which will administer this early childhood care program.
According to the municipal administration, in recent years Medellín has undergone a series of very profound changes in its social, economic, and political dimensions, which have revealed new problems that must be addressed by the State.
In a time of pandemic, eliminating some charges for 2,000 million, but creating others for 4,500 million is very serious.
Administrative reform appears as a tool to strengthen management capacity and organize government processes in a better way. This taking into account that the new Municipal Development Plan greatly changed the focus and goals of the city in the medium term, which implies a realignment of the local bureaucracy to improve its operation.
“We will have a more peaceful, inclusive, strategic, innovative and environmental city”, stated Carlos Alberto Gutiérrez, secretary (e) of Human Management and Citizen Service.
They question the new structure
Although the municipal administration insisted that these new offices, which according to calculations by the Ministry of Finance will cost 4,536 million pesos, will make the operation of the local bureaucracy more efficient, other voices questioned their high financial impact and asked to review with a magnifying glass reform.
During the launch of the Secretariat of Nonviolence, last Monday, September 14, the mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, stated that the resources to cover this item had been obtained thanks to the savings in advertising.
Although he did not mention an exact figure, the local president assured that so far this year the municipal administration had only invested “a third of what was previously spent on the media”, getting a cushion to undertake the reform without having to make layoffs.
However, as read in a concept of fiscal viability that supported the reform, drawn up last Friday, September 11, the Human Management Secretariat had to cut at least 43 positions that were vacant to balance the accounts. A decision that lowered the impact of the reform from 4,536 million to 2,086 million pesos, equivalent to 0.31 percent more in operating expenses.
Until now, the Mayor’s Office has been “clear” in the reasons for the creation of the secretariats and has maintained the line that it had anticipated during the first half of the year.
From the edge of the unions this cut caused concern. María Trinidad Torrado, president of the Union of Public Employees of the Municipality of Medellín (Sidem), stated that the elimination of positions, mostly technical, will mean for a large number of lower-ranking servants the elimination of an opportunity to apply to those vacancies and improve their working conditions.
In the Council of Medellín, which has been discussing the issue since the first half of this year, the reform also generated mixed reactions. While one side considers that the changes are on the right track, another questions the transparency of the process.
(In context: Doubts about the new powers granted to Mayor Daniel Quintero)
From the first perspective, the councilor of the Todos Juntos movement, Daniel Carvalho Mejía, who during the debates questioned some components of the reform, but supported it with a positive vote, considers that until now the Mayor’s Office has been “clear” in the reasons for the creation of the secretariats and has maintained the line that it had anticipated during the first half of the year.
On the other hand, the councilor of the Green Party, Daniel Duque Velásquez, an opponent and one of the three lobbyists who voted negative on the project, criticized the creation of so many high-profile positions.
“In a time of pandemic, eliminating some charges for 2,000 million, but creating others for 4,500 million is very serious. What you are going to have is a lot of bureaucratic positions to pay favors to who knows who, and in return they will run out of that investment budget, fundamental issues, such as those that these agencies are supposed to have to operate, ”Duque questioned Velasquez.
During the next few weeks it is expected that the Mayor’s Office of Medellín will begin to reveal who will be the new people who will arrive to release these 23 positions. So far, the only confirmed name is Juan Sebastián González Flórez, who serves as Undersecretary for Information Technology and Management, and will be appointed as the new Secretary for Digital Innovation.
Likewise, it is expected that the Municipality will reveal what the budgetary allocation of the new seven agencies will be and what specific programs they will be responsible for.
JACOBO BETANCUR PELÁEZ
For the time
MEDELLIN
