According to figures from the Private Competitiveness Council (CPC), the department of Cesar continues in the bottom positions in the Departmental Competitiveness Index, occupying position 21 on a scale of 33; This indicator measures twelve pillars (institutions, infrastructure, ICT adoption, environmental sustainability, health, basic and secondary education, higher education and job training, business environment, labor market, financial system, market size, sophistication and diversification, and innovation) (Rosario, 2023), in all of them, Cesar cracks.
Additionally, according to a report from the Departmental Health Secretariat on the IRCA (Water Quality Risk Index), of the 25 municipalities only 11 have drinking water and none have a guaranteed 24-hour service, this situation includes ironically to the capital; but as if that were not enough, this tragedy is compounded by the extreme poverty of a majority sector of the department which, together with the factors of violence and public order, generate an adverse cocktail so that it not only stagnates but continues its decline in the face of the indicators that measure the main pillars of development.
With this panorama, it then arises to ask ourselves if we resign ourselves to continue with this tragic situation or if, on the contrary, we make a stop along the way, recover common sense and sound logic that have always been the best advisers in any situation and both the one as the other indicates that it is not possible to recover the department if the same practices are followed, that is, the future of Cesar cannot be circumscribed to a fight between two political sectors for the control of resources that until now could not raise anything different since both one and the other are directly responsible for the current debacle; but perhaps even more serious and that I did not mention as the main threat to the Cesarenses, is the imminent drop in royalty resources via coal exploitation and that as an aggravating circumstance to date there is no concrete plan to replace them, an issue on which of course there is already a lot of literature.
All possible mistakes have been made with the department and this contrasts with the vision that its creators and founders had, firstly because by disconnecting from that vision it allowed it to fragment politically, socially, geographically and culturally to such an extent that three departments coexist in one ; those of the north, that is, those that have a direct relationship with the capital; those from the center who, despite having some relationship with the capital, their proximity to Magdalena and to the south of Bolívar connects them culturally with these departments, and finally those from the south, who are definitely Santandereanos in every sense of the word; In this context, how to structure a government that includes these complexities and manages to unite the department around a vision of Caribbean territory?, that achieves, for example, make rail connectivity to the Caribbean Sea a reality, potentiate the Hacaritama de Aguachica airport, the strategic ports on the Magdalena River, the dry port in Bosconia, the logistics airport on the Los Venados savannah and the completion of the sections of the Ruta del Sol and Depresión Momposina, the latter to unbottle Astrea and Chmichagua.
Thus, the government project must inexcusably contemplate the participation of the three sectors that represent the department, the projects previously contemplated must be the triggering factor to reorient the territory towards what is today vaunted without real support, the economic transition.
The problem is that twisting a culture like the one that is entrenched and that has brought us here is a daunting task, risky and full of challenges, but what is most worrying is that there is no glimpse of a political project on the horizon that has this mood and quite the contrary, what we see on the spectrum are caudillo candidacies that sell themselves as messiahs or saviors, others with a mob discourse that, by trying to win the vote of the bases, end up scaring away the other forces that are ultimately the ones that are calls to lead the changes the department needs.
If everything continues as it is, the current house of government and whoever has held power for the last 16 years will rise once again with the governorship of Cesar at the head of anyone who walks around unemployed or unemployed and wants to serve as governor, sad but real.