The Unasur building is the ‘ugly duckling’ of state real estate. Its maintenance is expensive and having it is a problem of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
About a year is needed $500,000 to keep the building defunct Union of South American Nations (Unasur). Built in the Correista period for $43.6 million, is currently disabled. rose between 2012 and 2015 in front of the Middle of the World monument, in Quito.
It was a gift from Ecuador to the countries that make up this international organization. The infrastructure was born with the idea of being the regional headquarters of Unasur. It has 19,533 square meters. They worked on its construction 1,200 people a day.
In May 2019, the building was abandoned, after Ecuador’s departure from Unasur, like almost all the countries that formed it.
In 2020, the state took possession of infrastructure through Chancellery.
Since then, its use has been uncertain. It was said that the property was going to be used by the indigenous university Amawtay Wasi, but this study center was never installed. Then it was proposed that it be the headquarters of public television, and didn’t happen either.
In June 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave the building to the Ministry of Culture. The idea was to use it as the place where the more than 46,000 pieces that make up the national heritage reserve.
None of that materialized and the building is still empty and forgotten.
They fight for not having it
The Foreign Ministry confirmed to LA HORA that, in June 2020the Unasur building passed into the hands of the Ministry of Culture.
The minister of this entity, María Elena Machucaagreed to talk to confirm that they are in the process of return of the property.
Although at first there was talk of transferring the cultural assets of the country there, this never materialized for two reasons.
The first is that the construction does not meet the technical or safety conditions to deposit there the cultural heritage of Ecuador. It would be a big risk.
The second reason, according to the highest authority of the Ministry of Culture, is that the cost of maintenance required by the Unasur building is very high. (about $500,000 per year) and would affect the budget of this State portfolio.
Given this, they hope that in one or two months the property pass back into the hands of the Foreign Ministry.
And, once again, it will be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who decides what to do with this monument to waste, which cost Ecuadorians almost $45 million.
Empty, surrounded by water and deteriorating
This super modern structure is currently surrounded by water. Facing the Middle of the World and next to dry mountains, the Unasur building reflected in the puddles that there is around him and that show the poor rain drainage capacity.
between the water there are coiled or stretched cables. Old. It would seem very easy for a short circuit to occur.
The doors are closed. No one attends to knocks on glass doors or windows. Inside there are lights on.
There are windows so dark that get closer you can’t even see the reflection. Abandonment shivers. It is striking that the few walls and those dark windows are not graffitied.
There is not a single movement. It seems that the Unasur building he grows old paralyzed in time.
Nobody looks at it. People begin to line up to visit the Middle of the World, turning their backs on it. It seems that it does not exist.
The administrators of the Mitad del Mundo tourist complex say that they do not see people entering or leaving there. They do not know who manages it. They don’t know anything about the neighbor.
Among the doubtful calm that surrounds the building, in the southern part, on the floor, by the water, there is always a little blue light onstill in the middle of the morning.
It cost us ‘an eye of the face’
Comptroller’s report DAPyA-0011-2016 confirmed that the contractor who was assigned the construction of the Unasur building did not deliver the work on time, having to pay $1.9 million fine.
But the contractor never paid. The audit that determined this error, also expired so the country will no longer be able to recover that money.
In other words, the construction of Unasur, in addition to being expensive, caused a additional damage to the State of $1.9 million.
