By Jorge Salgado.
March 12, 2023. After multiple and dishonorable first places in homicides, unemployment, infant mortality, and poverty, the government of Chocó and the mayor’s office of Quibdó could achieve the shameful prize for administrative incapacity if they compete by presenting the case of the Porvenir paving contract -Platen.
In eight years, three mayors (Zulia Mena, Isaías Chalá and Martín Sánchez) and several governors (Efrén Palacios, Domingo Palacios, Ariel Palacios and William Hálaby Palomeque) did not execute a paving contract of only 3,500 meters. The work has been suspended since June 2022 and everything indicates that the issue must be addressed by the new governor and mayor of Quibdó who take office on January 1, 2024.
This contract was signed on December 14, 2014, the works began on February 16, 2015 and the work was scheduled to be carried out in ten months, that is, it would end ten months later, on December 10, 2015. The The contractor for the work was appointed by the Quibdó mayor’s office and the controller by the Chocó government.
Initially, 13,232 million pesos were allocated for construction and 1,514 million pesos for supervision. In total, 17,500 million pesos have been assigned to pave only 3.5 kilometers.
On November 20, 2018, the construction contract was assigned by the Malla Vial consortium to the Association of Municipalities of Northern Antioquia, Amunorte.
It was reported in 2019 that the work was going to be finished in four months, which was also false.
As of today, the project has been suspended for more than ten months without any legal or technical justification. Neither the mayor’s office nor the contractors inform public opinion about a project of such importance for the Chocoan capital and where it continues to present a gigantic detriment to public heritage.
There are still 450 meters of pavement to be built, two box culverts, 19 accesses to the surrounding neighborhoods, sidewalks, signage, retaining walls, slope treatment, the 16-meter bridge with a pedestrian walkway, property management has not been completed, there are serious problems related to the social and the Environmental Management Plan.
In addition to all of the above, it is necessary to demolish plates that have cracked, sunk and others that are already showing wear. Demolish sidewalks that expanded, sank, and others that fractured. It also remains to build the social impact work in the Bosque de La Platina neighborhood. And only 2,900 million pesos remain to be executed.
What about control and justice agencies? The failed Porvenir-Platina paving project is a monument to the incapacity of the sectors that have governed in Quibdó and Chocó in the last eight years, an insult to the Quibdo community eager to improve their living conditions