A group of participants in the Bismarck Martínez land program denounced “delays” of the Mayor’s Office of Managua in the delivery of land, pointing out that the commune is giving “priority” to the delivery of housing.
“It doesn’t bother us that they help other people who have also paid a small fee to have their little house, but don’t forget those of us who are also paying for a piece of land,” claimed “Josefina”, who for three years – out of six that must be in total- has paid a monthly fee of 20 dollars to become a creditor of one of the program’s land.
The woman is 56 years old and earns her living as a merchant. Her income does not reach the minimum wage and she saw in the land program an opportunity to stop renting and have a space to build a house, but she, she regrets that since 2021 they have been postponing deliveries.
“I have almost 20 years of renting. I raised my two children in rented rooms, I lived posing with my family and now that I support myself in this Government program, which I saw as accessible to me as a poor person, they come out with this that they delay us for giving priority to housing, because in October they said they were going to deliver, after December, after January, now February has passed and nothing, but they continue to deliver homes,” he lamented.
Mayor “does not give answers”
“Juan”, 48, is also one of those who apply for a piece of land in the capital’s commune. He explained that -like “Josefina”- he has spent “all my life renting” and they expected “a better fulfillment of the delivery because it is a government program.”
“One believes that these things will not happen with the Government, but you see. I have gone several times, when I have to bring the quota, to ask when they will deliver us, but they only give us long, they tell us that they are already getting them ready, that they are going to call us there, that we have patience, that the last ones are coming deliveries,” he said.
The man affirms that as a construction worker he gets “few little jobs” and “many times it is a sacrifice to set aside the fee and also pay the rent in the room where I live with my two children and my wife.”
Three other program participants also told CONFIDENTIAL They have asked the Managua Mayor’s Office when they will be handed over the land, but they receive “the same answers.”
“We do not complain to them because they can take us out of the program and we need it, but our need is very great and that is why we decided to speak like this and see if they listen to us that way, they rush the delivery because it is a sacrifice to set aside the quota and continue paying rent and everything else”, they highlighted.
Commune does not detail progress in deliveries
In the Executive Report of Municipal Management of 2021, the Managua Mayor’s Office does not give details of the progress in the delivery of land of the Bismarck Martínez program, he assured in an interview with CONFIDENTIAL Councilor Sellin Figueroa of Citizens for Freedom (CxL), a political party that the Ortega-Murillo regime ordered last year to strip its legal status.
“There is a non-transparent policy, taking into account that they do not give data on the delivery of land or detailed investment figures for that program, when they are actually using funds from the institution to which they are obliged to account in detail. ”, he indicated.
He stressed that in the management report of the Sandinista Administration of the Managua Mayor’s Office they were only informed that 2,400 homes were delivered in 2021, as part of the Bismarck Martínez program.
The places where the houses distributed last year are located, according to the commune’s report, are the Villa Jerusalem and Villa Flor urbanizations, where they delivered 1,750 and 650, respectively.
Sandinista administration promises deliveries starting in March
The deputy mayor of Managua, Enrique Armas, during the delivery of 100 homes last January, indicated that the Bismarck Martínez program plans to build 3,629 homes by 2022, in addition to those already delivered in 2021, indicating that they will reach a total of 6,029 homes. built in the Villa Flor de Pino, Villa Jerusalem and Camino del Río urbanizations.
He mentioned that as of March they plan four new deliveries of land, which contemplate the distribution of a total of 2,400 urbanized lots in Villa Esperanza. However, he did not detail the monetary investment that is destined for the Bismarck Martínez land program.
Councilman Figueroa pointed out the lack of transparency of the 2021 management report and that The last piece of information they learned about the monetary investment for the Bismarck Martínez program is the one that was presented to them in an ordinance they received last year on “the projection of ordinary and extraordinary income”, where the “fund for the Bismarck Martínez social housing” with a budget of 803,326,472 cordobas.
The official explains that this amount adds up to the municipal transfer received by the Managua Mayor’s Office from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, funds from Invur, Banco Proburguesas, a CABEI-Banpro trust, and the contribution made by future land creditors. and houses.
The Bismarck Martínez land program was launched by the Mayor’s Office of Managua in October 2018. According to interviews given to official media by the secretary general of the capital’s commune, Fidel Moreno, until June 2020 this had the participation of 6,000 “protagonists”, people that had already been selected and met all the requirements to access one of the lots.
Moreno detailed at that time that the participants had to pay a monthly fee of 20 dollars for a period of six years, to complete the payment of 1,500 dollars for the lot, without specifying in what period the land would be delivered to them. He also reported that there were 12,000 participants in the Bismarck Martinez housing program.
Until now, publicly, the total amount of land that has been handed over by the commune and the amount that remains to be distributed is unknown. The detail of the monetary investment they have made in the last three years of execution of the program is also not known.
