More than 100 days have passed since a new government began in the Municipal Administration of Neiva, Germán Casagua, the mayor elected by the residents of Neiva, publicly denounced to the authorities more than 22 irregularities found in the last administration, but the campaign time has already passed. It is over, and it is necessary to review how far the city has come in these almost four months.
DIARIO DEL HUILA, SPECIALS
For them, Diario del Huila interviewed Mayor Germán Casagua, with whom we discussed in detail his flagship proposals and who has been able to advance so much.
Mayor, 100 days have passed in Government, now that you are the head of the municipality of Neiva, what is your perspective on the Administration?
We had a vision because of the work that I did from the Neiva Council, because of the political control debates, because of the information that the Administration itself requested and provided to me, based on that I had a concept of the critical state in which the Administration was, but When January 1st arrived and we ourselves began to verify, to review the information, sadly I was surprised that the situation was worse, much worse than I imagined.
That is why since January 1st we had to come up with a shock plan for the organization of the Municipal Administration focused mainly on the Ministry of Finance where we received a huge financial crisis, that led us to make a very large austerity plan because the The deficit in which we received in the municipality was 98 billion pesos, meaning that we had the savings that we obtained from that austerity plan, a large part of this resource was destined to pay that amount of debts. We established some mechanisms in these first hundred days, such as the systematization for the payment of property taxes, to facilitate the payment of this tax for citizens.
We have been working jointly with business entities, with the academy, which has also been a very important starting point, we have monitored and improved contract processes such as the School Feeding Plan, where we have done a huge audit to guarantee quality and the amount of food our children eat.
It should be remembered that the incoming Administration found the entire PAE bidding process advanced, the proposal had already been qualified and chosen, so Mayor Germán Casagua only signed the contract and supervised it.
An issue that is fundamental in your work plan for this Mayor’s Office is security. How has it gone?
We have been doing hard work in security, it has not been easy, we have been making progress in crime indicators such as theft from people, from residences, of course we have not won the battle regarding this, but we have been reducing space for these criminals.
We find ourselves with the difficult situation of the policy established by the National Government with the FARC dissidents, where this ceasefire has allowed these criminal groups to surround the city and be located very close to the urban area of the municipality of Neiva for since come there to extort our businessmen, the great advantage they have is that in the department of Huila there is no ceasefire, as if it was established in three nearby departments, this led to these people moving to Huila because here the The Army cannot confront them directly, so they sadly have enormous comfort, despite this we have made an enormous effort and in these terrorist events that have occurred in Neiva, we have been able to capture four of these criminals in immediate reactions.
Several criminal gangs have been dismantled, as well as the capture of bandits with national recognition for their criminal acts. We are fighting drug trafficking, achieving important seizures.
We delivered 13 motorcycles and a truck to the National Army, which will allow us to have their support in patrolling in the rural and urban sectors of the municipality.
What is missing in security?
We have a huge project, we need to restructure the entire intelligence center, control of the security cameras, we are working to present a project of about 26 billion pesos, where we would have the implementation of 200 security cameras with a central monitoring, it is a project that is advancing and we hope to manage resources with the National Government, we would begin to carry out important co-financing with resources from the municipality’s security fund. Another of the main projects is the completion of the Permanent Justice Unit, we find that work unfinished, we are making great efforts to put it into operation, this will undoubtedly continue to help improve these indicators, we will also work on the recovery of some Mobile CAI that we found in complete abandonment.
The maintenance of the road network was one of your commitments in mobility, what has happened?
We have already started the entire process of recovering the road network, it took us a few days because we found several unsettled contracts with very delicate legal issues, which led us to analyze it legally, to carry out field audits to leave evidence, because they are contracts that We have to settle, but I cannot accept responsibility for other people’s decisions.
We are already carrying out all the patching work and maintenance of the road network in our municipality. We hope that between now and June we will be able to deliver roads in perfect condition. That is a great effort that we can make, but I know that we can achieve it.
Mayor, you proposed the creation of new roads to improve mobility, as well as forceful actions for the traffic light center, what are you doing?
We have two large road projects, which within the work we are carrying out is the structure and formulation of projects to be able to attract resources for management from the national or departmental government. The first project is the extension of the Sixth from the Americas where the double lane begins and to be able to connect it with the 52 in the Las Palmas neighborhood. The second major city project is to connect the El Tesoro neighborhood with Caña Brava in Commune Two. We are already doing all the property analysis, which is one of the issues that makes it most difficult for the execution of projects from the public sector.
The environment was part of your government plan with a project in favor of animals and another for citizens. Tell us how this is progressing?
We have very important environmental projects, such as the Botanical Garden, the Cocoa Park, the animal welfare and protection center, where two of these projects we have already updated prices, one project was already in phase three, we finished that one its update, the other was in phase two and we are already completing the detailed engineering of this to have it ready and obtain the resources through the Government. We are defining the property for the Animal Welfare and Protection Center, which is a great commitment to animals and I know that this will be a very beautiful work that we will be delivering to the citizens.
Educational infrastructure is one of the concerns that the community in general has, since this has increased school dropouts. When will the arrangements start?
Our goal is to achieve 100% coverage of the school feeding plan. We have already advanced the process with an investment of 1.2 billion pesos to adapt kitchens and dining rooms in educational institutions that do not have them, to achieve full coverage.
We are facing the educational infrastructure fund, resuming a supremely important project such as the Caguán mega school, a project where the resources were assured and unfortunately it did not materialize, it already has detailed engineering, it is in phase 3, so with the update prices of that project, to start through management.
What is important here and due to the crisis in which we find the Municipal Administration, and we have expressed it since we were in the campaign, is the success of this government is due to the management of resources, to bringing resources of a departmental or national nature, as well as attraction of investment, through the modification of the tax statute that we are already managing to provide benefits and make investments in our municipality attractive.
Germán, How is the issue of the football stadium progressing?
I have to recognize the great commitment of our Governor Rodrigo Villalba, we are working very articulately, we already have some proposals, we already clearly defined the objective of the investments we want to make, so it is a project that before June we need to have it so that the national government , where we have had the opportunity to go with the Governor to the Ministry of Sports to make arrangements and they have expressed their willingness to support us, since we hope to obtain the resources that may be fluctuating around 50 billion pesos.
Finally, how has the work of the Mayor’s Office been with the Municipal Council in these 100 days?
Supremely respectful, they are councilors who have been doing their job, very attentive to the decisions made by the administration, making recommendations, constructive criticism, I truly feel very satisfied with the position and criteria of the Neiva Council Corporation.