Since it was made public delivery of a home to a member of Cabildo Abierto no drawthe Minister of Housing, Irene Moreira, and his party insisted that the procedure had followed established procedures.
Although this Thursday at the Cabildo Abierto they had recognized that there is no norm that enables Moreira’s behavior, they understood that there was no regulation that prohibited it. Therefore, that it was allowed.
However, this Friday senator Guido Manini Rios He made a statement, in which he did not accept questions, and presented a regulation that, according to what they say in Cabildo Abierto, supports Moreira’s actions. Something that, in reality, does not happen.
“According to a circular that in one of its parts says that the reservation of the quota, speaks of a quota that was being reserved for a United Nations program, it may be maintained for the most needy sectors that receive income less than or equal to the poverty line and others that for technically well-founded reasons, this is the case, technically well-founded, the ministry’s technicians studied the case for six months and recommended the award, are not in a condition to meet the requirements established in the corresponding calls for the different programs. That is to say, exactly the case that this situation is covered“said the senator.
However, the technicians from the Ministry of Housing had approved Píriz as the successful bidder of the new house because met the requirements of the call for the raffle.
On September 5, 2022, Mónica Píriz met with the social services of the Ministry of Housing because the ex-minister had reserved a place for her.
In that interview, a record was made of his “socioeconomic situation and that there were no objections that prevent you from accessing the “lease with option to buy program”says part of the file to which he accessed The Observer. On January 30 of this year, the MVOT confirmed that Píriz would agree to an apartment in the building on New York streets corner Yi, in Montevideo through the modality of rent with option to buy. The decision was made “based on the documentation presented” by which it was concluded that “the beneficiary is in good condition.”
In addition, another of the arguments handled by Cabildo Abierto is that other administrations also proceeded in the same way and Manini in his statement made reference to the fact that in July of last year different departments of the ministry had been notified and even the undersecretary, Tabaré Hackenbruch, of this type of procedure.
In August 2022, the National Housing Directorate reported internally that as of the 2nd of that month, the protocol began to be applied “Procedure to carry out direct awards in housing complexes”. That is to say, it was not until the middle of last year that a procedure was established for this type of discretionary deliveries.
The protocol, to which he agreed The Observer, establishes the steps that the requests received by the authorities and the secretaries of the MVOT must follow. This process is centralized by the National Housing Directorate and must go through, among others, the Coordination Division and the regional office. At the direct request of the minister, this was the process that was followed in the case of the Cabildo Abierto militant.
What were the conditions of the draw and what was the situation of the winner?
The call established that the applicants should have a minimum income of 25 Adjustable Units that were $39,600 pesos and a maximum of $95,040 to March 2022, when the call was closed.
Mónica Píriz, the beneficiary militant, met the requirements for the lottery call, according to the information collected by the MVOT in the interviews, because her income was on average $42,776 per month for the invoicing of a sole proprietorship of “communication services” to the newspaper La Mañana –owned by the Manini Ríos family–.
The call also established that the maximum age of at least one of the holders at the time of registration may not be greater than 60 years, something that Píriz also complied with.
It was also requested not to be a promissory buyer of the BHU or the National Housing Agency (ANV), not to have a bad rating in the BCU risk center or more than four negative records in the Clearing of Reports. The advice of Operational Planning concluded that Píriz was in good condition access to housing through a loan from the MVOT through the National Fund for Housing and Urbanization.
The MVOT technicians described the situation as a single parent home, made up of Píriz and his underage daughter. At the time of the interview both They had lived in the Punta Gorda neighborhood for six years, where they rented a house. The daughter studies in secondary school and neither of them declared having health problems.
What does the norm say with which the Cabildo defends the actions of Moreira?
The document was drafted in 2009 when the The National Housing Directorate proposed reserving a minimum quota of 10% “of all the housing solutions of the different programs” for families that “result compatible” with the objectives of a project that was signed with the Organization of the United Nations (UN) in 2008 in the “Primary Housing Care Program”.
To deliver the quotas, the regulations establish that the selected families They will have to have the endorsement of the National Housing Directorate and the director of that department will be the one who approves the selection criteria of the people who will agree to the direct designation of the dwelling. The procedure does not establish which MVOT authority is authorized to reserve the space.
At the same time, the reservation of the household quota is for the sectors that receive “family income less than or equal to the poverty line” according to that established by the INE –which for Montevideo is established at less than $31,002 in a nucleus of two people–.
The reservation of quotas can only be made for homes that are in Montevideo, Maldonado, Canelones, Salto and Paysandú and the Cooperative Program is not included within that possibility.
