Mayor of Bogotá during interview for El Espectador
Photo: El Espectador – Gustavo Torrijos
After the sudden intervention of the Centro Oriente subnetwork by the Health superintendency, Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán made harsh pronouncements on the issue. Through a video shared on his social networks, the president said that he was taken by surprise by the intervention and that said action did not correspond to the dialogues that the District had established with the entity on April 29.
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“To date, we have not received comments from the Superintendency. For this reason, the decision to intervene in the Central East Subnetwork takes us by surprise, since we understood that the path that was going to be followed was different to solve the structural problems of the subnetworks,” he considered. Likewise, Galán reported on the actions that his administration has taken during these five months of government, to resolve the information.
The Liévano tenant commented that the Health Secretariat team carried out a diagnosis with the support of the unions and user representatives, to understand the origin of the problems in order to adopt decisions that allow the subnetworks to be strengthened.
In this sense, since April 1, according to Galán, they have been working on the construction of a sustainability plan worth $260,000 million to cover the budget deficit and install the technical and administrative capacities that allow them to be sustainable. starting in 2026. Said plan, in addition, would have been socialized in the famous meeting that the District held with the superintendency.
Despite this, the Mayor reiterated to the Superintendent that Bogotá is ready so that, before any new decision on possible interventions, indicators and figures are reviewed as a team, and improvement plans are also studied together.
About the decision of the Ministry of Environment
On Monday, May 6, the Ministry of the Environment issued a resolution (421 of 2024) with which it immediately suspends the interventions of the Mayor of Bogotá in three wetlands of the capital: Juan Amarillo, Córdoba and Jaboque.
The resolution, says the portfolio led by Susana Muhamad, obliges the District Environment Secretariat to carry out an environmental impact study, “that reveals the effects that the hardening works had on the wetlands.” This is a study that must be accompanied by the Ministry of the Environment.
Faced with this decision of the National Government, the president issued the harshest statement of his speech. He highlighted that the announcement made by Minister Muhammad represents a clear excess of the powers of the National Government.
“The environmental authority in Bogotá is the Ministry of Environment, which long before this decision had deployed all actions aimed at the sustainable development of Bogotá, exercising the administration, control and environmental monitoring of the 17 wetlands located in the city, thus guaranteeing their conservation,” he said.
Likewise, the president announced that, in the coming days, the District Legal Secretariat will present a claim for annulment against said decision.
At the end of his statement, the Mayor made a vehement call to the National Government to respect the management of the city and the opportunity to resolve problems independently. “It cannot be that, if the National Government does not agree with district policies, it seeks to ignore the territorial autonomy of Bogotá. We are not going to allow it! “He declared.
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