On March 22, 2022, the then governor of Magdalena, Carlos Caicedo Omar publicly revealed the designs of what he promised would be the university headquarters of the South, located in the municipality of El Banco.
The project had been promised since 2019, and although its announcement was well received by the community, as it is a historical claim by the youth of southern Magdalena, the first questions did not hesitate to arise.
The first of them was the excessive costs.
At that time, the work announced an investment of $35,000 million, but as detailed in media such as Prensa Code, the university headquarters of the Universidad del Atlántico or the University of Antioquia did not exceed $15,000 million.
Despite this, the commitment to carry out the project continued, and on August 23 of last year, in the middle of his visit to the municipality, Carlos Caicedo reiterated the start of the works, which would have an execution time of 10 months.
“My idea is that in all the cardinal points of the department there is a university headquarters so that the children of the town can stay there studying, graduate and bring progress to their municipality,” he said at that time.
That day, a new fence of the work was revealed, which, it should be noted, had had a million-dollar change: it was no longer $35 billion but $38,692 million.
Without explaining why the addition of more $3,000 million in a matter of just over a year, it was indicated that the university headquarters would be delivered on June 26, 2024.
Ruined
This Wednesday the deadline was met, but today there will be no stage, no musical show or political intervention to liven up the delivery of any university headquarters, since the project is still in progress.
The Government has not given further explanations about this fact, however, the latest update available on the work is a statement from the government of Rafael Martínez, where it shared the results of a meeting in February of this year, in which to the contractors to “put them on the board” and tell the progress “of the work fronts that Carlos Caicedo left to end poverty and Cambiar el Magdalena.”
Regarding the university headquarters of El Banco, it was said that it was 30% complete.
They requested more resources
Three months later, also through a bulletin, the Government of Magdalena celebrated that the majority of the Assembly approved a debt quota of $300,000 million, mentioning that such resources would be used in the construction of a university headquarters in Ciénaga, but also in the provision of the university campuses of Plato (with an expenditure of $33,168 million), as well as that of the municipality of El Banco.
Both unfinished. Both nonexistent.
In this way, not only the destination of the resources is still unknown, but also the date on which the university infrastructure will finally be in service.
