Through a statement, the Attorney General’s Office warned about serious delays in the approval of Science, Technology and Innovation projects, CTeI, financed with resources from the General Royalties System for $2.99 billion, for the 2023-2024 biennium.
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In a circular sent to the Ministries of Science, Technology and Innovation, Environment and Sustainable Development, Agriculture, ICT, and to the Technical Secretariat of the OCAD CTeI, the attorney general for Royalties Monitoring, John Harvey Pinzón, warns that, just under With two months to go until the end of the biennium, in none of the 10 calls opened by the Ministry of Sciences have the projects to be executed been selected and in only two cases have definitive lists of eligible candidates already been published. There is one more call that has not yet been made public.
This situation, as described in the communication, could generate cost overruns and other traumas in the execution of the selected projects, since by the time their execution begins, six months after being approved, variables such as the obsolescence of technologies, the cost of materials and the number of beneficiaries will have changed.
Among the reasons why the delay occurred, there are five modifications to the Original Call Plan for the biennium.
Among the recommendations made by the Public Ministry are to adopt the necessary measures and mechanisms to guarantee transparency and suitability in the technical evaluation of the projects that finally make part of the list of eligible, as well as guarantee the correct supervision of these, in order to to avoid new delays and cost overruns that affect the resources of the system and the beneficiary communities.
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