Once a month, “Cándido”, 81, received a food package from the “Alma Solidaria” program, carried out by the Managua Mayor’s Office. The package included ten pounds of rice, five of beans, five of sugar, two bags of spaghetti, and a bag of pinolillo. However, six months ago he stopped receiving it since, he says, members of the Council of Citizen Power (CPC), made up of militants of the ruling Sandinista Front, excluded him from the list of beneficiaries for not attending the party meetings that they convene twice. per week
“I had been receiving the package for two years that they themselves (the CPCs) came to offer to my house in 2020, but without telling me anything they stopped bringing it. Some of the group (of beneficiaries) told my girls (daughters) that they no longer give it to me because I don’t go to the meetings. I only went twice in these two years that they gave it to me, because I can’t walk alone in the streets. I am an old man now, I can hardly see, it is difficult for me to hear people and I walk with difficulty. They know I’m screwed, but they only care about politics, not the need for one”, laments “Cándido” in an interview with CONFIDENTIAL.
The older adult lives in a neighborhood in District IV, Managua, along with two of his daughters who earn a living ironing and washing for others. He does not receive a Social Security pension because all his life he worked informally sewing baskets in the Wholesale Market and did not adjust to pay it. Now that he is no longer a beneficiary of the food packages, he affirms that he tries to “eat a little and not be a burden” for his daughters.
“Solidarity Soul”, not very transparent
The “Alma Solidaria” program was launched in 2015 to, according to the Daniel Ortega regime, “restore the rights of the elderly and people with different abilities.” At that time, the goal of the Managua Mayor’s Office was to benefit at least 8,000 older adults in the capital.
The technical file of the program’s profile states that it seeks to “attend” older adults and people with disabilities “with the delivery of auxiliary means, visual aid, hearing aids, coordinating specialized medical care, as well as training, health promotion physical, psychosocial, in addition to delivery of food packages.
According to the Annual Investment Plan (PIA) or 2022 budget of the Managua Mayor’s Office, the “Alma Solidaria” program received an allocation of 11,249,679 córdobas, which translates into 1,607,097 córdobas for each of the seven districts of the city. capital. However, it is not specified how much is specifically allocated for the purchase of food packages.
Opposition councilors from the Mayor’s Office of Managua indicated – in an interview with CONFIDENTIAL– that they are unaware of the distribution of the budget received by the “Alma Solidaria” program, since the Sandinista Front Administration of the commune is “not very transparent” and does not detail how much of that item is used exclusively for the purchase of food packages .
CONFIDENTIAL reviewed on the Nicaragua Compra portal, in which institutions and mayors report their purchasing or bidding processes, but so far in 2022 the Managua Mayor’s Office does not have any procedure with the description of food packages.
The vice president and spokeswoman for the regime, Rosario Murillo, in her speech on April 5 in the official media, assured that between the 18th and 22nd of that month they would begin the delivery of 54,000 food packages throughout the country. This is the number of food packages that are delivered approximately every month throughout the country, according to official press releases, which, however, do not detail the amounts for each municipality or department.
Excluded for protesting
“Marcio”, a resident of District II, Managua, has a 27-year-old daughter who was born with a psychomotor disability. The citizen, who makes a living repairing cell phones, explained that at the end of 2015 members of the CPCs approached his home to offer “social help” for his daughter, through the delivery of food packages, stating that he would not have ” no political commitment.
He assured that they received the package the first eight months without problem, but at the end of 2016 they stopped arriving without prior notice.
“I realized that they no longer came because we did not have a Sandinista militant card, but we did nothing to get them to come back, we did not want political commitments,” he said.
After ten months without receiving the package, “Marcio” explained, the members of the CPCs returned to their home again to deliver the monthly food package.
“We don’t know why they decided to do it, but they came back. They took the package month after month for another year, and already in April 2018 they took us out because they saw that we participated in the marches, ”she indicated.
“Marcio” explained that the package was delivered to him, in addition to the members of the neighborhood CPCs who kept the list, workers from public institutions and on other occasions collaborators with the Managua Mayor’s Office.
“They came in different vans from different institutions or from the Mayor’s Office. The package wasn’t that much, but it helped. It brought rice, beans, oil, spaghetti and pinolillo, but since they stopped bringing it, we didn’t complain. We know that they see us as opponents and we do not want them to believe that they are buying us with that,” he stressed.
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, in the last four years, has systematically violated the human rights of Nicaraguans. holds more than 180 people imprisoned for political reasons in the different prisons of Nicaragua and has outlawed to more than a thousand non-profit organizationsleaving thousands of unemployed citizens and others without the possibility of accessing the social assistance managed by these NGOs.
“Marcio” recounts that, in the midst of his economic difficultieshave “doubled their efforts” so as not to feel affected by the lack of the food package.
“These packages come from our taxes, but they (the Government) use the aid so that one follows them and we are not going to fall into that. Even if our guts ring a bell – he affirms – no one here is going to beg them”.
