The new mayors officially assumed their mandates on November 10, 2021. Seven months after their assumption, the outlook for their municipalities has not improved. On the contrary, the terrible state of the streets and even the poor management of waste marked the new administrations of Asunción, Lambaré, Luque and San Lorenzo, which generated the rejection of the citizens.
In a survey carried out by this medium on social networks, residents of Asunción and surroundings describe the management of their communal chiefs as terrible. The most questioned administration was that of Óscar “Nenecho” Rodríguez (ANR), which concentrated 85% of the rejection of the inhabitants of the capital.
URGENT INTERVENTION BY THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
In the city of Asunción, not only the high rates of assaults make the capital an unsafe municipality, but also traffic accidents caused by “potholes,” recalled the lawyer and former candidate for councilor Rosa Vacchetta.
“The Municipality requires us to pay a tribute for the maintenance of the streets. However, for that asphalt layer they do nothing more than a few fixes that with each rain they end up leaving again. A house pays between 400,000 and 500,000 guaranies for pavement maintenance. If that amount is multiplied by the number of taxpayers, we will obtain the real figure that is allocated to this item. There should be no reason that prevents the municipality from fixing the streets that have expired, which are the majority of the streets”, he stressed.
According to Vacchetta, this administration “is making waters” from the most basic, since it is inoperative to maintain streets and public squares. “Today you can’t go out and sit on a bench in a square, because they are all destroyed and submerged in an open sewer.”
Likewise, the former candidate for councilor lamented that currently “an unfortunate state has been reached”, in which citizens cannot even claim the needs of the capital, without escaping the threats of the mayor.
“The reaction of our mayor to the citizen’s complaint about his lack of management shows that the shortcoming is not only technical or management, nor is he emotionally prepared to govern,” he added.
For this reason, Vacchetta emphasized that it is time for the Municipal Board to withdraw confidence from Óscar “Nenecho” Rodríguez and request the intervention of the Central Government. The emergency measure responds mainly to the proximity of the Odesur Games, which will be held next October.
The activity will bring together more than 20,000 tourists, but the capital shows one of its worst facades.
“The Board has to request the intervention of the Central Government and ask that it take charge, because we are talking about the capital of the Republic of Paraguay. We are in July, in October the Odesur games arrive. It is appropriate to draw the attention of the Board and point out that in three years of management the mayor did nothing. He first made the pandemic an excuse, where he spent, but was not accountable. It’s been a year since he has a second term. He didn’t do anything for three years,” he maintained.
THEY DUPLICATE OFFICIALS BUT THEY DO NOT DO WORKS
The management of the mayor of Luque, Carlos Echeverría, (ANR) was also the target of criticism and 75% of the users of the survey postponed his administration. His administration was marked by reports of shortages of more than G. 6,000 million, in addition to cost overruns in works with Fonacide resources.
Dr. César Meza Bria, former mayor of the Commune, pointed out that today the Municipality of Luque is “overcrowded.” According to the former municipal chief, until 2015, there were more than 590 officials, currently this figure doubled.
“This makes it impossible to comply with what the law demands, which is to allocate 40% of the budget to invest in works. Municipal management like this is useless and ineffective. The citizen is very exposed to having to pay for managers to be able to carry out a management or move any file. Today these are the main shortcomings of the municipal government”, he stated.
In this same line, Meza Bría recalled that the municipality does not achieve a good collection. In line with this reality, management and operability are also “not adequate”.
“You can’t do great things if most of the municipal income goes to pay salaries. We have a budget that is close to G. 90,000 million guaraníes, which does not vary. What services can the municipality offer you, if the collection is inadequate and the distribution of these incomes too, ”he concluded.
RENEW THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PUBLIC
The management of Rosa Agustín “Guido” González (ANR), mayor of Lambaré, was described by 57% of social network users as “terrible”. After years of laziness, the streets of the city of La Burrerita are full of potholes, which represent a danger to passers-by.
Councilor Osmayra Torres recalled that the main complaint of the residents of Lambareños revolves around the terrible state of the streets, in addition to poor waste management.
“We must also understand that within the municipal institution we always have the problem of budget availability, because there is a fairly high tax evasion, which is around 60%. We seek to generate strategies that can remedy this inconvenience in order to provide citizens with lasting solutions, ”he said.
In addition to the deplorable state of the streets, poor waste management and lack of planning and development in Lambaré also afflict the people of Lambaré.
“We are jealous of the municipal good. With this new administration, we ask citizens to trust us again. We are going to generate new strategies so that people can believe in us again”, he concluded.
POSTPONED
Felipe Salomón’s administration was also the target of questioning and his management was described by 75% of users as “terrible”.
