Even though the ‘cards’ were played, the draft agreement 007 through which the president of Neiva requested that he be granted pro tempore powers to modify the Mayor’s staff, was archived. Having a positive presentation and majorities in the Third Commission did not help on this occasion. The councilors exceeded the discussion time and to save themselves from possible trouble, they ended up ‘burying’ the initiative.
After more than six hours of session, the draft agreement that sought to grant pro tempore powers or as some call ‘super-powers’ to the leader of the Neivans, German Casagua Bonilla, was archived. This after the councilor speaker, Juan Carlos Parada, gave a positive presentation and left the project ‘alive’ for a few minutes, however, for exceeding the time limit and not requesting a permanent session in a timely manner, it ‘died’ for now.
All this happened yesterday in the Third Commission of General Business of the city Council, which is made up of: Miller Osorio Montenegro, Juan Carlos Parada Moreno, Juan Sebastián Prieto, Juan Yamid Sanabria, Ramiro Vidal Benítez, Lourdes Paola Mateus Serrano and Johan Steed Ortiz Fernandez; This last member declared an impediment given that a possible conflict of interest could be generated in decision-making under the understanding that his father has held an administrative career position within the Mayor’s Office of Neiva since 2009. Therefore, the heated debate It was only developed with six of the seven members of said commission.
Excess time took its toll
Juan Sebastián Prieto, president of the Third Commission in which the first debate of the project took place, said that in fact the reason that led to the shelving of the project is that a permanent session was not declared on time and that prevented them from continuing deliberating.
“The time of six hours was met, a permanent session was requested, but according to the notification from the notary who is the General Secretary, we spent a few minutes requesting it because we should have requested it half an hour before the six hours that we can meet were up and, Therefore, we were out and we didn’t have time because the session had ended,” commented the lobbyist who believes that the project is legal and convenient for the city.
They will insist again
Given this, the Secretary General of Neiva, Raúl Eduardo Mosquera Quiñones, stated that, after this panorama, they would sit down to review the next step with the legal authorities. “We are just dating; “It was a long day, we are analyzing and when we have clarity we will do what is pertinent to be able to move forward and fulfill the purposes we have with the administration,” he said.
He added after the day that everything “is very good”, since it was understood that there is a latent need and the project is not devoid of legality. “There are good intentions around being able to minimize the issue of operation much more, without affecting any type of people. In the end we are respectful of the law, it is clear that there is an internal regulation and if it says that it has to be archived, then we will continue working to have results,” said Mosquera Quiñones.
After these statements, LA NACIÓN learned that, in the coming days, more precisely next week, extraordinary sessions will be called again to re-present the draft agreement.
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staunch defender
One of the lobbyists who most vehemently defended the draft agreement ‘cloak and sword’ was councilor Juan Yamid Sanabria, who decided to clarify that, “This is shelved due to a procedural issue but not a substantive one, so that does not prevent that can be presented soon so that it can be processed again within the corporation. “I will continue defending this issue that is technical and political, but they want to make it more political than technical.”
He insisted that Neiva needs an administrative restructuring to have a more efficient mayor’s office. “I did a review of the fulfillment of goals by Secretariats for the year 2023 and there I was able to show that many did not fulfill the purpose for which they were created, so, based on that, now what the new restructuring seeks is eliminate a number of positions that are not operational for the city and we consider that this should be led by the mayor’s office promptly through a study that is carried out,” added the faithful defender of the mayor.
An opportunity to show consistency
For her part, Lourdes Paola Mateus Serrano, was the only councilor who disagreed with the project, however, she explained that it ‘died’ due to a procedural error and lack of experience of the municipal cabinet that demonstrated a lack of knowledge. of the internal regulations of the Neiva Council.
“I imagine that it is very unfortunate for the administration to a certain extent because depending on how the debate was going, they had the majorities to approve it in the first instance,” said the lobbyist, who also explained that, during the day, she remained in the same position that is not related to the legality of the project because it recognizes that it is indeed legal, but it is inconvenient posed under this logic.
“We have insisted on the importance and need to carry out this institutional redesign because ultimately what has the administration financially overwhelmed today is precisely that explosion that the previous administration generated in operating expenses. So the redesign is necessary, but knowing the studies and without the Council giving up the powers it has to debate,” said Mateus Serrano.
He specified that the corporation’s experience has shown that councilors who grant powers without knowing the studies end up regretting them and, therefore, he calls on the Mayor’s Office of Neiva to take advantage of this time to reconsider the project, collect observations and present it. with their respective studies.
“In fact, former councilor Casagua was one of those who regretted having voted for the restructuring in the period of Rodrigo Lara Sánchez and then pushed to vote negatively on the redesign of Gorky Muñoz Calderón, and now he presents a project in which he asks that those faculties. “It is a huge contradiction between former councilor Casagua and Mayor Casagua,” he concluded.
