In the case of Sambil La Candelaria, in April 2022 the building was handed over to its owners.
Last Friday I attended the opening of the new headquarters, in Caracas, from the “Elías Calixto Pompa” University Institute of Technology. Located in El Paraíso, it will allow hundreds of young people to pursue cutting-edge careers, generating employment for dozens of teachers, employees and workers and multiplying opportunities.
The IUTCP is a private initiative that, as explained in his inauguration remarks by the president of the Superior Council, Alfredo Rodríguez, waited fifteen years for the necessary permits and authorization. The promoters did not give in to the obstacles that waves of bureaucrats put in the way, nor did they pay attention to the difficulties of the environment. They insisted on replicating the successful experience that they began three decades ago in Guarenas-Guatire and finally made their dream come true.
Hours later, on Sunday, invited by the Cohen family, I really enjoyed the official commissioning of Sambil La Candelaria, a majestic work that has generated more than four thousand direct jobs and has already become a reference center for commerce and enjoy the families of the parish of the same name.
The Sambil La Candelaria was expropriated by President Chávez in 2008. Converted into a refuge for the homeless, the thousands of meters of construction became a sad example of the inability of a political-governmental management model to generate prosperity.
By 2021, one of the first steps – discreetly, without noise – that the newly appointed Commission for Dialogue, Peace and Reconciliation of the National Assembly, advanced, was the rapprochement and recognition of the business sector and within this framework the proceedings carried out for the return to their owners of expropriated assets at some time.
In the case of the Sambil La Candelaria, after a lot of work and with a very positive performance from different instances of the National Executive, in April 2022 the building was handed over to its owners, who did not give up and finally managed to make their dream come true. They also waited fifteen years.
I heard that the patriarch of the Cohen family, born in Jerusalem, affirmed that “everything I am I owe to Venezuela” and that beautiful phrase should mark us and understand that everything we are we owe to Venezuela and as such we must commit ourselves in giving our best for this country of ours.
The IUTPC El Paraíso and the Sambil La Candelaria are the result of men and women who, owing everything they are to Venezuela, give everything for Venezuela, trust Venezuela, invest their capital earned honestly in Venezuela, work for Venezuela. Both groups are an example of the push of a business community that does not believe in fatalists and that with such deserve the greatest support from the State and individuals.
We have said it and we will continue to affirm it as much as possible: in order for us to move forward and leave behind this permacrisis that plagues us, we need businessmen, entrepreneurs, and merchants who, together with their workers, will make a different Venezuela possible.
In the words of El Libertador, a distant 1827, which we remember on Sunday: “….constancy and more constancy; work and more work, to have a homeland”.
Now concluding: talking with my good friend and outstanding journalist, Eduardo Rodríguez Giolitti, at the opening of the Sambil La Candelaria, he told me emphatically, “this is the possible Venezuela.” I assured him that my column this week would be titled like that; his is the credit.
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