70% of the houses built by the Government are uninhabited

70% of the houses that the Government built in eight municipalities of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz still have no inhabitants. These are Warnes, Cotoca, Tolata, Vinto, Sacaba, Cercado, El Alto and Mecapaca where 3,185 housing units were built in the last five years, 2,221 are occupied and only cases of them.

The investment exceeded US$100 million and, due to the lack of employment, there are US$83 million that “are asleep” and that they are not being recovered by the State.

The data is part of an investigation carried out by the Housing Committee of the Chamber of Deputies on the basis of official reports sent by the Ministry of Public Works and the State Housing Agency (AE-Vivienda). Legislators from the MAS and deputy Aldo Terrazas, from the opposition alliance Ciudadana Community (CC) requested, separately, information regarding the projects carried out.

Among all of them stands out the Altos de Cotoca Condominium, in the department of Santa Cruz. There, 960 apartments were built and delivered in February 2020. Until now, only 80 are busyaccording to the investigation made by the Legislative.

EL DEBER visited this building yesterday, which is located at kilometer 12 of the route that connects Santa Cruz de la Sierra with the capital of the municipality of Cotoca. access to the property, composed of 20 blocks of four floors eachwas guarded by a guard and yesterday the presence of neighbors was scarce.

In this housing complex there are apartments with two and three bedrooms and the lowest price for one of these goods is $21,500. “There is a stagnant capital of $8,920,000 for two yearswhen said plan was concluded, ”says the report accessed by this medium.

“There is a housing reassignment plan, if they were not fulfilling their social functionl”, was the brief response that EL DEBER obtained from AE-Vivienda. The director of the entity, Juan José Espejo, was in several meetings yesterday and did not attend to the requirements.

“The Altos de Cotoca project it is totally disproportionate; it is the largest in the country and there are another 465 homes in that municipality. They should allocate what they have and give them to people in need,” said Terrazas.

The Minister of Public Works, Edgar Montaño, in response to the Request for a Written Report (PIE) Mopsv/Desp 335pointed out that it was impossible to deliver the list of beneficiaries for the housing projects of AE-Vivienda in attention to the civil rights to privacy of the American Convention on Human Rights.

But, there is more. In the Salom urbanization, which is at kilometer 11 of the Santa Cruz-Cotoca highway, 50 houses and 204 apartments were built and only eight are occupied.. “Each apartment has a cost of US$39,000 and there are 196 unemployed persons, making a total of US$7.6 million to recover,” indicates the investigation by the Legislative committee.

The Patujú condominium is a housing plan located in Warnes and there are 96 apartments in 10 four-story blocks each block. They were delivered in September 2019, of which eight have been marketed.

According to Terraces, One of the most delicate cases is in the Papa Francisco de Clara Chuchío-Warnes urbanization. There are 443 houses distributed in 15 apple trees, of which 368 were overwhelmed during the political crisis of November 2019. The remaining 75 homes are empty and the total investment for this plan is US$104 million and AE-housing has not yet resolved what the recovery plan for the invested capital will be.

In Mecapaca, a municipality located in the south of La Paz, there is the Pacha condominium of 170 apartments, 80 of which are occupied. In El Alto, the buildings
Wiphala is a housing plan of 336 apartments that are distributed in seven blocks of 12 floors. There are 78 unoccupied apartments there, totally deteriorated due to abandonment.

In Sacaba, Vinto and Tolata, municipalities of the department of Cochabamba, 976 housing solutions were built, of which 796 are still unoccupied and pending commercialization. The investigation says that there is $39 million of that investment that has not been recovered to date.

According to Habitat for Humanity, Bolivia reports a high rate of housing deficit. Also, approximately 30% of the population lives overcrowded. Three years ago, 64.8% of Bolivians did not have enough space in their home, according to data from a survey by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

Terrazas stated that AE-Housing developed projects throughout the national territoryly that the study “is a significant sample” of the municipalities located in the most populated areas of the country and “where there are more needs.”

“It must be recognized that in rural areas, the projects have worked better because the beneficiaries themselves have contributed labor to be able to finish the construction”, he remarked.