Culture, tourism, music and tradition, would be the main aspects that identify the municipality of Valledupar, but unfortunately, today it is the city, which according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane), has the highest rate of informality in the country, a panorama that brings with it insecurity and economic instability among its inhabitants.
The Dane revealed in the last hours, the technical bulletin of informal employment in Colombia for the mobile quarter September – November 2022. In this it was indicated that for the national total in said period the proportion of informal employed was 58.2%, which represents a decrease of 0.9 percentage points (pps) with respect to the same quarter of the previous year, which was 59.1%.
For the total of the 23 cities and metropolitan areas, the proportion of informality was located at 45.3%, which meant a decrease of 1.2 pps with respect to the same period of the previous year (46.5%).
Of the 23 cities and metropolitan areas, those with the highest proportion of informality were Valledupar (69.5%), Riohacha (68.3%) and Sincelejo (67.1%). The capital of Cesar had a notable growth in terms of this phenomenon, since in the same period of 2021 it was the fifth city with the highest rate of informality, registering 63.6%. The same happened with Riohacha, since between September and November of the previous year it registered 64.1%. For its part, in Sincelejo the index fell because in the same period of 2021 it registered 67.6% of informality.
While the cities with the lowest proportion of informality were Bogotá DC (36.3%), Manizales and its metropolitan area (36.7%) and Tunja (38.8%). The phenomenon was reduced in the capital of the Republic, since in 2021 it registered 42.1% in the same period. While in Manizales and its metropolitan area (33.4%) and Tunja (45.4%) there was growth.
INFORMALITY, A TERMINAL CANCER
José Luis Urón, president of the Valledupar Chamber of Commerce, when referring to this increase in informality, stated that this is a culture that is becoming a terminal cancer in the territory. “Those who launder taxes, those who launder assets, are the ones who take advantage to lead formal companies to liquidation.
Here what forceful actions of the Colombian State are required to guarantee businessmen the possibility of commercial activities”, he said.
Urón Márquez urged the need to guarantee respect for the institutions as has been claimed by the Interunion Committee: “We cannot make this territory a dark territory, a territory where people think twice to come,” he assured.
The importance of selling the territory as a tourist power to generate business and economic growth, is always the proposal of this union. However, it was noted that the task of speaking well of the territory depends on the Cesarenses, specifically the Vallenatos.
The National Federation of Merchants, Fenalco, has stated that in Cesar unfair competition is destroying formal commerce. There are countless places that have had to close their doors due to the intervention of informality. They do not pay rent, nor do they pay taxes, services and much less social security to their workers.
Another phenomenon that is occurring is that the investor, seeing himself suffocated by this irregularity, chooses to join the informal sector and that is fatal, it takes away the rights of the formal entrepreneur.
Unfortunately there is no political will to help in the slightest to end this situation, they see it as a giant monster with which they adapt to living. The most serious thing is that they let them take over the public space that belongs to all citizens.