The mayor of Neiva, German Casagua Bonilla, will insist before the Council that they empower him with the ‘super-powers’ to modify the Mayor’s staff. The president summoned the corporation to extraordinary sessions. “What he did criticizing Gorky (Muñoz), right now he is doing it…” said the former mayor and councilman, Héctor Javier Osorio Botello.
Rafael Rodríguez C.
‘Super-powers’ to modernize the municipal administration of Neiva, among other provisions, without going through the Council, seems to be the obsession of the mayor, German Casagua Bonilla.
And it is that for the second time the controversial draft agreement that was filed last weekend due to procedural errors in the Third Commission of General Business was before the Council. “Pro tempore powers are granted to the mayor of the municipality of Neiva to advance the modernization of the municipal central administration and other provisions are issued,” says Decree 0271 presented on Tuesday, April 30.
An apparently substantial change in the new project is the reduction in the time of the powers; in the first the president requested ten months, in the new one he asks that the exercise of extraordinary powers be for six months to “determine the structure of their dependencies and remuneration scales…”, states the draft agreement
“The project fell due to a procedural error, and an issue of internal non-compliance during the debate session in the general business commission…” said the president of the corporation, Juan Diego Amaya Palencia.
He indicated that the councilors, mainly the president of the Commission, omitted a permanent statement during the session. “The internal regulations say that it must be declared before six hours into the session. He (the president) forgot it and for that reason, the project had to be archived because the development of the project itself was flawed.”
If the process had continued and the proposal had gone ahead, it would be flawed. “I think it was an exact decision by the president of the Commission to have archived the project so as not to vitiate it,” said Amaya Palencia.
He assured that he remains in his decision not to vote in favor of granting extraordinary powers to President Casagua. “The Municipal Government has decided to file that draft agreement again, I remain in my position, I want to clarify that the request for powers are not illegal, they are legal, but it goes against the nature and deliberative essence of the Council.”
He specified that the Council is the body to study and control the Mayor’s proposals. “The Council is here to study, to analyze, to argue, to debate, not to grant the municipal administration or mayor the powers that citizens and the law have granted us.”
A similar position, of not supporting the project, is maintained by the former mayor of Neiva and opposition councilor Héctor Javier Osorio Botello, that an “administrative restructuring of the Municipality is a responsibility that must be assumed directly by the Corporation, the Council, because it is defining what the institutionality that is in the capacity to generate, and to comply with effectiveness, efficiency and effectiveness of the powers of the Municipality…”.
He recalled that Mayor Casagua is falling into the same practices of his predecessor Gorky Muñoz Calderón. “What he did by criticizing Gorky (Muñoz), he is doing right now…he opposed authorizations to make administrative or institutional structuring in the previous government on the basis of distrust, and of course he ended up doing the same thing he did. Gorky presenting a faculty project.
The former president and current councilor stated that each mayor seeks to restructure the administration to their liking. “Here we have become accustomed to the fact that each administration makes a redesign to suit itself, a ‘tailored’ redesign, and that should not be like that, we must have an administrative structure that consolidates the powers of the Municipality, it seems to me that it is a wrong message and the truth is that “We don’t share it.”
Extra sessions
Mayor Casagua Bonilla, to seek that the project of pro tempore powers, among other projects, be granted to him, summoned the councilors to 21 extra sessions starting today, May 2.
The councilors will also debate the Municipal Development Plan 2024-2027, an addition to the income and expense budget for the 2024 term and make transfers to the expense budget for the 2024 term.
In addition, to authorize the Mayor of Neiva to establish autonomous assets through commercial trust contracts, transferring two real estate properties for the development of social housing projects, and modify articles 2,3 and 6 of Municipal Agreement No. 004 of 2016 and other provisions are issued on the Municipal Council of Culture of Neiva.
