Jorge Salgado
By Jorge SalgadoQuibdó, August 6, 2023.
The first year of Gustavo Petro’s government was another year of general setback for the Chocó.
PND
Contrary to the expectations of the majority of the Chocoanos who supported it at the polls and who expected change, the Petro government dealt a blow to the resources of the Chocó in the National Development Plan, PND, 2023-2026.
Of the $1,154.8 billion approved in the PND 2023-2026, only $11.6 billion (one percent) went to Chocó. This represents a setback in relation to the disastrous four-year period of the Duque government, when of the national total of $1,096 billion, $15.22 billion (1.38%) was allocated to the department.
The Petro government’s PND reduced the amount of $3.62 trillion to Chocó, which means a 23.78% decrease in public investment. Never before has Chocó been the victim of such a big economic slap in the face, $3.62 billion, valuable resources that are required to meet multiple needs.
With this outrage, the tangential mention in the PND of the agreements of the Chocó civic strikes and of some Chocó projects become a dead letter due to the limited resources.
Faced with some just claims for this rude slap, national government officials acknowledged the reality of the figures but created illusions saying that they were going to “compensate the Chocó in the law of addition to the 2023 budget.” None of this happened, they broke their promise and Chocó lost $3.62 billion: $3.62 BILLION!
worsens the social situation
In Chocó, insecurity and violence increased in the first year of Gustavo Petro’s government. Displacements, confinements, homicides, massacres, extortion, thefts, robberies, and general anxiety increased.
The San Francisco de Asís Hospital has weakened further in the last year, under the intervention and administration of the national government. He has no sutures, no gloves, no syringes, no antibiotics, the ICU is closed and several months of salaries are owed to nurses and doctors. All its indicators worsen and the promises of the Ministry of Health to move it forward have vanished.
According to the National Institute of Health, the number of children killed by malnutrition and the number of people with food insufficiency (malnutrition and hunger) grew in Chocó.
In Chocó, structural unemployment and poverty continue, increased by the irrational continuation of blowing up mining companies, the lack of incentives for productive projects, and the precariousness or lack of energy, aqueduct, sewerage, and internet services.
Tens of thousands of families in Chocó remain isolated from the national electrical interconnection network, cooking with firewood, using inefficient and polluting diesel fuel plants, lighting themselves with 19th century oil lamps. Either they are forced to infect the water sources due to the absence of latrines and sewage systems, or to consume unsafe water. Or they try to survive with colonial mining, digging up the earth with a punt and an almocafre in search of a grain of metal.
In the last year, the living conditions of Chocoanos have worsened due to the exorbitant and constant increases in electricity rates, gasoline, air tickets and family basket products.
Breaches
There have been many breaches of the Petro government with the Chocó in its first year of government. In addition to the deception about overcoming the crisis at the San Francisco hospital, the construction of the César Conto Theater continues to be paralyzed. The National Risk and Disaster Management Unit, an entity dependent on the Presidency, continues to breach its commitments with the communities of El Valle, regarding the protection of the corregimiento against the erosion of the river, regarding the transfer of Boraudo, in Lloró, and regarding the continuity from the San Martín de Purré-Pacurita road. Next August 10 marks the four-month anniversary of the failure of the bridge over the Iró river in La Encharcazón and the removal work on the old metallic structure has not even begun.
Invías has failed to complete the paving of the Puente de Chocolatal-La Esso road in Bahía Solano and the paving of 4.3 kilometers of the Ciudad Mutis-El Valle road continues to be paralyzed.
cheap demagoguery
Petro’s demagogic proposals and statements about the Chocó have been abundant. One of the most insane is the elevated electric train (“flying train”) between Buenaventura and Barranquilla, crossing the Chocó on the north-south axis, from the mouths of the San Juan to the Darién, above the canopy of humid tropical forest, and connecting several municipalities of San Juan and Atrato.
Another is the proposal to create the department of the Pacific, which ends with the department of Chocó.
Another nonsense of Petro is to oppose the construction of roads, such as the essential road to the Ánimas-Nuquí sea, using sophistry about water mobility or inventing that “the land roads in Chocó are an imposition of a Western white racist vision that clashes with the territory”.
no change
One year of the Petro government has passed and the tragedy of the Chocoano people has worsened. Less resources, more insecurity and violence, less health, more malnutrition, backwardness, hunger, unemployment and shortages, non-compliance everywhere, demagogy and quackery.