Last week, the caucus of mayors of the multicolored coalition in Montevideo announced that they would block the advancement of the loan that the Municipality of Montevideo was negotiating with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), because it did not meet the requirements that they set for it to advance.
The president of the Montevideo Department of the National Party, Laura Raffo (who is not a mayor), was in charge of communicating at the time to Cosse and his government that they were not going to follow the path outlined for the loan to be approved, since The mayor’s letter “did not contemplate” requests that the legislators had made.
“We agree on the importance of these infrastructure works for the population of Montevideo. We also understand it is relevant that the execution of the sanitation projects and the comprehensive cleaning plan included in the Montevideo Urban Sanitation Program, already approved by the IDB, begin, ”said a letter sent to Cosse’s office.
Raffo now has another thought, because he believes that the loans would have helped avoid the problem of drains and sewers that can no longer cope when it rains copiously in a matter of a few hours, as a result of climate change, unlike how the rain was distributed throughout throughout the year decades ago.
“The climate change to which the mayor referred has been a subject of study for 30 years and precisely one of the most important conclusions is that extreme droughts, record rainfall and floods occur more frequently,” Raffo began by saying in Twitter.
“The IDB loan provided the IM with a unique opportunity to continue working on the sewage and storm drainage network, as planned for this five-year period, attending to urgent needs in Montevideo Forgotten, which were exposed after the storm,” added the former candidate for the mayor’s office.
“These are some of the neighborhoods that were covered with water yesterday and that the IM did not include in its project with the IDB, although it was planned to extend its drainage network from 2023: Villa García, Bella Italia, Boiso Lanza, Cañada Matilde, New Spain, Maracana, Susana Pintos”, he continued.
The IM already has an operation underway
The capital commune has an emergency plan in place to meet the needs of Montevideo residents who were affected by the heavy rains last weekend, when large amounts of water fell in a short time, saturating the sewage and drainage system.
The departmental government delivers mattresses and cleaning kits in 19 neighborhoods as of Tuesday morning, as a first measure, and made available the number 1950 internal 1607, for those who need help in the most affected neighborhoods. Neighbors and social organizations can make their requests for help through this channel.
Around noon they began on Calle Alfonso Lamas and Camino Maldonado, where the mayor of Montevideo, Carolina Cosse, was present.
Later, the team went to the El Progreso settlement (Hipólito Yrigoyen and Costanera Concepción del Uruguay), another of the places included in the first tour. These places were defined based on a survey carried out by the Intendancy on Monday the 17th. Later they were delivered in Las Cabañitas (Pantaleón Pérez and Ravignani); in Manga stream (Lieutenant Rinaldi and route 8).
