These six months of management have become an accelerated “travel in time”, with the purpose of shortening those distances and returning to the people of Entre Ríos a strong and agile State, with its healthy finances and efficient management tools for all dimensions of the social growth.
Under the logic of common sense, planning, order and innovation, governing “without money” has become a very difficult circumstance that, however, will prepare us all for when the context begins to improve.
That darkness and disorganization that we found at the beginning of the mandate took inefficiency to its worst expression, which is not being able to assist the most vulnerable. Simply put, we find a State “naked in the face of need.” But help to those who need it most can never wait, especially at this time, and for this reason, it is one of the priorities of provincial management. Especially guaranteeing food.
We say that “it can be managed without money” because it is not the circumstances that define us, but the decisions we make in response to them, and boy have we done it in this time.
In terms of food, since March, we increased the allocations for our more than 1,800 school cafeterias by 75% (almost the total amount increased in all of last year) and we continue to monitor the situation so that no child lacks quality food. More than 50% of the students in our public schools receive food every day, and we are working closely with teachers and cooks to improve the service and make it traceable and equitable.
Together with the Modernization Secretariat, we are modernizing the management system of our dining rooms, to move from paper to the digital era, as in all areas of government.
Starting this month, the Dining Room Directorate is working with a new computer system for the operation and control of the comprehensive management of the dining rooms. We will all be able to know the number of students covered by type of service and educational level; compliance with the governing criteria regarding the formation of menus offered; the infrastructure and equipment conditions of schools for the provision of school feeding services; the staff available for preparing meals and accompanying students; training carried out by kitchen staff; the budget items allocated to the service; and the opinion of students and their families about meals, among others.
Modernizing is not a snobbish or improvised slogan, it simply implies what the governor said: getting out of obscurantism so that transparency and control allow us to see everything we do (and do not do) with the resources of the people of Entre Ríos.
Revaluing the function of public employment is another of the goals of this government, which is why, for the first time, we started a university training plan together with the Faculty of Gastronomy of the UADER for our more than 3,000 cooks. The course begins this month, it will be systematic and its continuity is guaranteed for the next three years.
Every day, in every corner of the Province, school and community cafeterias are visited and surveyed. We are close, because we believe it is the only way to manage possible changes. In this task, we are not going to give up every time we see a poorly spent resource. We visit community kitchens to help them in their task, but also to prevent money from going to those who do not account for the resources or use them to pay for political leaders. In this process we have a total of 16 casualties, while we update the list of those who need more assistance because their demand has increased.
Beyond child nutrition, an inherent weakness of food programs in general is the absence of a single base of beneficiaries of the set of programs granted by the different jurisdictions (Nation, Province, Municipalities). This characteristic, in addition to the lack of transparency in the management of resources and the spaces of overlap that it generates, makes it difficult to match beneficiaries and transferred resources. For this reason, we created a Single Registry of Food Policies, within the scope of the Food Policies Directorate. Thus, little by little we will be able to trace in a clear and transparent way the food assistance that each Entre Ríos receives.
We are ordering priorities and creating a State that thinks intelligently about how to better manage the few resources we have. But it’s not just about surveying, ordering, optimizing… WE ASSIST. And we are doing it sincerely, so that the aid is efficient and not a “propaganda of action” without practical meaning for the people.
Today, through the Social Risk program, around 25 thousand beneficiaries in a state of extreme social vulnerability are assisted in coordination with the Municipalities, Boards and Communes. In March, these benefits received a 400% increase in their monthly amounts, which reach each Entre Ríos family without intermediaries. Here we also work every day to expedite the registration and cancellation process and ensure that no one stops receiving assistance from the State, without delays or arbitrariness.
In Entre Ríos there are numerous and complex situations of social vulnerability and we have to continue working, side by side, day by day and in silence to provide answers, because behind it is the dignity of the people. In this social task, no one has a “providential” title nor do we look for “protagonists” or “culprits.” We are all important. Therefore, from day one, we maintain an attitude of sincere dialogue with all social actors, working with intensity, patience and determination so that solutions reach those who need them most.
While we work to unravel the chaos we found, we reorder priorities and begin to address pending structural reforms. We are aware that changes are not achieved overnight, because recovering lost time “takes time.”
The Provincial State is a team of many people with different functions and ensuring that we all go in the same direction and at the same pace is an enormous and necessary challenge assumed by our Governor, in which we are all committed as part of this management.
Telling the truth and making decisions (with… or “without money”) to be masters of our own destiny… that is the revolution of common sense that, step by step, will ensure that together we recover all the lost time. No effort we make in this sense will be in vain, because everything What we do, if we do it together and well, always lays the foundation for something better.
