The Attorney General’s Office maintains its magnifying glass on the contracting process for public lighting in Cali.
The general manager of the Municipal Companies of Cali (Emcali), Roger Mina, He said that officials summoned them in Bogotá, where on June 24 they explained the scope of said contract. The manager assured that it was a workshop, in which they made observations about the process.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, complaints have been received regarding the provision of public lighting service, regarding “possible violations of the General Statute of Public Procurement within the framework of previously announced contracts.”
That is why the Attorney General’s Office indicated that the entity has been analyzing preventive surveillance of a contractual nature on the provision of the service.
The Ombudsman has been attentive to this hiring, so on June 26, in Emcali They updated the conditions of the process, after observations by delegates from the Attorney General’s Office in Bogotá.
During the same June 26, in the second debate of political control of the public lighting tender for the city that is in charge of Emcali, the general manager of the Mine did not rule out that in the medium term the workers of the entity could attend that service.
In relation to the current contracting process, Mina explained, it is an ongoing procedure without award and not a contract. “We don’t know what the final prices we are going to have will be, so we can’t talk about equity detriment either,” said the general manager of Emcali.
“I welcome the fact that there is a coincidence in betting on Emcali, in allowing the company to have a different role in the provision of public lighting service, which is why the public lighting tender runs until December 31, 2024. without future terms for a longer contract. In that period we will present a proposal where Emcali plays a different role, I welcome the proposal that Emcali could operate one area or all, this will depend on a specific proposal,” said the manager.
“But we have to be responsible with the citizens and correspond with the service they deserve and that requires enlistment, which at this moment is not clear, but we can build on the remainder of the year, defining the role of Emcali in the provision of the public lighting by 2025,” said Mina.
Councilors Flówer Enrique Rojas, Ana Leidy Erazo Ruiz, Sergio Mauricio Zamora and María del Carmen Londoño, requested that one of the three areas be initially awarded to Emcali so that the entity can prepare itself with a view to handling all the contracts from January 2025, because the workers have carried out this work all their lives and have prepared themselves as technicians and professionals for it with the same money from the company. “The return generated by Emcali must be for social investment,” they noted.
Councilor Juan Felipe Murgueitio considered that Emcali is not yet prepared to assume that responsibility at this time, but in these next six months the company can prepare and provide the service. And he conceptualized that dividing the city into three zones can be beneficial for providing better service, as long as there is an effective audit.
Councilor Roberto Ortiz reiterated his position of withdrawing the bidding process because from the beginning it has flaws in substance and form in such a clear way that even the Attorney General’s Office is in favor of that request, since there is suspicion of it being a contract designed for the questioned businessman William Vélez who has been operating the service for 24 years and has only modernized 34%.
For his part, councilor Carlos Hernando Pinilla said he did not understand what the modernization that is intended to be done consists of, since it only refers to the change of lighting and it is not specified who will audit said contract. “In 1998 it was said that to modernize Emcali the neon lights were going to be changed to sodium lights to save 60%. Today, in the year 2024, it is said that to modernize the city’s public lighting we must change the sodium lights to LED and we will save 60%. In other words, history repeats itself,” Pinilla said.
If councilor Flower Enrique Rojas questioned something, it was the plurality of bidders because he considers that it is half true, since it is a contract in three zones that will be awarded according to the score of the bidders, The fine print allows the bidder with the highest score to be awarded the other offers, if the others do not comply and that can be addressed in the bidding.
Councilor James Junior Agudelo recalled that technology advances rapidly and therefore this process must take it into account, since the changes that are going to be made must be for the well-being of the city. “Doing it later will be more expensive and that is why it must be done now, with cutting-edge technology, lights with cameras, with a Wi-Fi system and other accessories that demonstrate that Cali’s public lighting is truly being modernized,” he added.
For councilor Sergio Mauricio Zamora, the current hiring process cannot allow any proposal from businessman William Vélez to be taken into account because he is ethically and morally questioned at the national level and has proven to be incapable of providing the service, because in 24 years of Labor, the only thing he has done is earn more than $500,000 million and now he wants to be given another $57 billion through a lawsuit.
CAROLINA BOHÓRQUEZ
EL TIEMPO correspondent
Cali
