The much vaunted Vallenata Culture Center that the former governor, Luis Alberto Monsalvo, compared at the time to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in Spain, has become, with the usual additions, the work that has taken the most resources in history of the department, 190 billion pesos from royalties and can reach 200,000 with adjustments, a huge figure that should have been invested, especially, in social projects, in search of solutions to close the latent inequality gap. To give you an idea, it would cost 3 times more than the Movistar Arena in Bogotá. But it’s not just that, in times of climate change, they chose to cover a cement building with an iron lining that, in addition to increasing the costs of the work, has weakened the structures due to the weight, they have had to reinforce the pillars and can It could even be dangerous, not to mention the infernal heat, in a city with an average temperature of 38 degrees, where of course they will have to use, it is not known how many tons of refrigeration, to be able to function. Can you imagine the energy bill with that? air-conditioning?
Governor Elvia Milena San Juan came out to say in the Assembly that she would provide the resources that were necessary to finish the work, as if the money were hers and as if the Caesarians were stupid, although we all know that she cannot say anything else. , since she owes eternal gratitude to the Gnecco clan, as she herself stated in her inauguration speech. And continuing with the work is her only option, at any price, including ending up in prison.
It is a total disregard for a department that requires basic sanitation works and roads of all kinds, hit by hunger and lack of opportunities, with poverty that exceeds 55% and a capital like Valledupar, lacking spaces that protect and promote cultural heritage; It does not have a museum of fine arts, nor a theater, nor a cinematheque. It only has a half-baked Legend Park, which, by the way, was the ideal place where that museum should have been built, obviously with less money and more functional, to boost the area and turn it into a tourist development hub. But in the environment, egos and parochial fights between families always prevail; With this reality, added to the arrogance that characterizes our questioned “leaders”, they preferred to build it in a place surrounded by clinics, without taking into account the impact on traffic. They did exactly as with the soccer stadium, despite the fact that the experts’ recommendations aimed to build a new one on the outskirts of the city; They ignored it and look at what there is now, a disaster that even the Alianza coach criticized, because it does not meet the conditions to host a first-class team. The origin of the problem is always the same, the corruption that has led us to the current unfortunate situation.