The department of La Guajira begins the year with good news, of which the Minister of Housing, City and Territory, Jonathan Malagón, is the bearer. In April of last year, we expressed our appreciation for his efforts to approve Document Conpes 3989, through which he was given the green light and issued a “concept favorable to the Nation to contract an external loan with the bank multilateral up to the sum of US $ 50 million, destined to the financing of the drinking water and sanitation program for the department of La Guajira ”.
The good news is that said loan was approved by the Inter-American Development Bank –BID– before the end of the year, which ensures the disbursement of the resource and its execution. It is worth noting that this credit, unlike the one contracted by the Department with the World Bank, for a value of US $ 90 million, for the financing of the Departmental Water Plan, this time the Nation is responsible for the credit contracted and additionally denominated in Colombian pesos ($ 181,759.5 million), as Minister Malagón said, “to reduce the risk due to the volatility of the exchange rate.”
An additional US $ 7.75 million (approximately $ 25,000 million) are added to the loan resources associated with the operation of the loan granted by the IDB from its Donation Fund, in this case for migrants and another US $ 5 million ($ 17,000). million, approximately) from the Fund administered by the IDB of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. So if we add these non-reimbursable resources with the amount of the loan, we are talking about a consolidated figure of $ 223,759 million to be invested in expanding coverage and improving the quality of the potable water and basic sanitation service in the Department.
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With the investment of these resources, the Ministry of Housing, City and Territory proposes to achieve a rural coverage of 70% and in the urban area of the Department of 86% and a continuity of the provision of the water service suitable for human consumption of 16 hours. Additionally, it is aspired and expected that 68% of the population of the Department will have wastewater treatment, which today is in critical condition.
Recall that, according to said Conpes Document, “according to the results of the 2018 National Population and Housing Census of the National Administrative Department of Statistics –Dane–, the coverage of 47% of the aqueduct service in the department of La Guajira represents a gap of 40 percentage points with respect to the national average (88%). For the sewerage service, coverage amounts to 42%, that is, 34 percentage points lower than the national average (76%) ”. So the challenge is immense.
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In this way, the Guajira Azul program will continue, “with the aim of reducing the gaps in access to drinking water and basic sanitation,” which was launched in 2018, mainly focused on bringing solutions to rural areas. According to Minister Malagón, at the end of 2020, $ 86,000 million were invested through this program for the execution of 13 projects with such a laudable purpose.
With this program, in addition, as the minister has stated, the objective is “the institutional strengthening of public service providers to improve their sector performance and the process of regionalization of these services.” This is key, because it is the only way to ensure the continuity and sustainability of the provision of these services. For this reason, we celebrate the step taken by the Departmental Assembly, at the request of Governor Nemesio Roys Garzón, by empowering him to establish the Departmental Company ESP de Agua –EDA– with a participation of the Department with 51% of the shares of the same.
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This is a step in the right direction, which should be consolidated by providing it with a corporate regime that shields it from patronage temptations and ensures eminently technical management away from the ups and downs of partisan politics. I invite the governor and the 15 mayors, who participate with 49%, to take this second step. La Guajira will know how to thank you. As the Spanish poet Antonio Machado said: “slowly and with good words, that doing things well matters more than doing them.”
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