In the municipality of Urumita, Guajira, there are two Personería offices open to the public: both have a record of possession and appointment as manager. However, Carlos Díaz Daza was assigned on February 29 by the council’s board of directors and Rafael Eduardo Ramos on March 1 by the mayor’s office.
The situation has generated a clash of powers between both entitiessince each one claims to have legal arguments to justify said appointment on a temporary basis, because the process of electing a firm representative is suspended.
On the one hand, Mayor Mary Luz Corrales assures that she proceeded to temporarily appoint Rafael Eduardo Ramos, because the municipal council was not in session for March 1, date on which the vacancy was generated due to the departure of the previous officialwhich, as he explains, transferred the power to make the appointment to his office.
“They committed a malfeasance. The vacancy of the representative due to the expiration of the institutional period was generated on March 1. What if this maneuver made a career in the country and that the authorities, faced with a future vacancy, will appoint someone? Surely those who would be close to retirement or those who suffer from terminal illnesses would already have a replacement. For me, the lack of the municipal council is clear,” said the president.
Meanwhile, Alcides Lagos Duarte, president of the municipal council, stated that the appointment on February 29, the last day of ordinary sessions, was within the legal order, because on March 1 the person in charge had to start the function. For this he made the possession certificate for the same day and carried out a connection between the outgoing and incoming representative of the Public Ministry, but the next day everything changed.
“The community of Urumita today is at a crossroads. To whom do they complain? Who are they addressing? Who monitors and controls municipal officials? “Who monitors the PAE program?” said Lagos.
Due to the complex panorama, not even the Ministry of the Interior made a decision in this regard, after visiting the municipality to take a position in this almost Macondian dispute, For this reason, both parties filed a lawsuit requesting the Nullity of the electoral action before the Administrative Litigation Court of La Guajira
. This process is already in the pipeline and awaiting a ruling.
Double attention
According to Carlos Iván Daza, the representative appointed by the council, his functions are limited, because the Mayor’s Office It does not recognize it, which makes it difficult for it to exercise surveillance over the work of its departments.
“It is materially impossible for these functions to be fulfilled by two people. People are faced with this confusion. Even the people who come to my offices are faced with an inability on my part to carry out certain functions.. For example, if it is for disciplinary control over municipal officials, it is not easy for me to do so,” explained Daza.
The only thing they put themselves into in agreement the president of the Council, the mayor and one of the representatives The thing is that neither the Prosecutor’s Office nor the Attorney General’s Office has done anything about this unique case in the country, in which the community remains headless.
