The Tram system has a deficit; has been operating for a year.
CUENCA
Two requests were made by the Municipality of Cuenca during the solemn session for its 201 years of independence: the management of the Center for the Deprivation of Liberty (CPL) of Turi and that the Government assume liabilities and the annual subsidy of the Tram transport system.
Both were carried out by Mayor Pedro Palacios before Vice President Alfredo Borrero, who attended that event – held on the afternoon of Wednesday 3 – on behalf of the Government.
Days ago, Palacio had already anticipated the intention to administer the prison, because from his point of view “Cuenca does not deserve to be part of a prison system that had to be restructured years ago and does not comply with the regional character.”
Asking that a prison be administered by a municipality and not by the national government has voices for and against. There are those who do not believe it is convenient, but others support the initiative, especially when from the Constitution and the Comprehensive Organic Penal Code (COIP) there is an open door for this to be carried out.
Mayor of Cuenca asks the Government to assume the liabilities and the annual tram subsidy
Paúl Serrano, who was the zonal coordinator of the then Ministry of Justice between 2014 and 2015, knows well the operation of the Turi Center. He agrees with this possibility, because he considers that it is legally feasible and because this would generate processes of true social rehabilitation, at a time when the State seems to have lost control.
In his opinion, executing this request will be long-term, because it not only depends on the mayor, but also on the Cantonal Council to support the proposal or not. Here it confirms that when the project was proposed it had a regional character, with a maximum capacity for 1,800 deprived of liberty. Over the years it was national, so it welcomed more than 2,500 people.
He also believes that, if the Turi jail receives inmates from Cañar and Morona Santiago, it should be thought of as a commonwealth that defines who should be in Cuenca. It suggests that, for example, in Azogues there should be those not sentenced, due to the presumption of innocence, and the offenders, but the sentenced ones should occupy the cells of Turi.
Remember that due to his functions in the defunct Ministry, he learned that in more advanced countries, such as the United States, there are federal prisons managed autonomously. In the case of Cuenca, a model similar to that of the municipal mobility company could be applied, which is in charge of road control through civil agents, a detention center for offenders, a retention yard, educational processes, among other topics.
One benefit of locally controlling the jail, according to Serrano, is that it will be known “who is here”, which, thinking as a city, is better than if someone decides from a desk in Quito.
But the colonel in passive service of the Army and former director of the Municipal Police of Cuenca Guillermo Cobo has doubts that a municipality is capable of managing a jail, even more like that of Turi.
It maintains that the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI), the body in charge of these places, does not work alone, but relies on different ministries to carry out its work, including them, rehabilitation.
And although he acknowledges that the control was out of the hands of the Government, he estimates that “nothing positive” will come out if the prisons are controlled by the municipalities. “Who would do prison intelligence? Or what happens if there is an emergency and the Municipality needs help from the Police or the Army, but they cannot have them?”
With mass and two floral offerings, the events began in Cuenca
Cobo does not look with optimism at the request for it to be a regional prison, because that would imply that the population of those deprived of liberty is reduced, with which other questions arise: where will the rest go? Who is going to receive them? ? “So, it is not just to say, because sometimes it comes out, ‘it is a very complicated matter that the State got out of hand,'” he says.
The only thing in which he agrees with the mayor is that, if the management model changes, it could curb insecurity, because an inmate never comes alone, his relatives do not have a job and “they think about what to eat, how to survive, and there he comes. crime, violence ”, he assures.
Another of the Palace’s requests during the solemn session to the president was that he fulfill his campaign promise to assume the debts and subsidies of the tram. Last January 15, during an electoral visit, Lasso said at a press conference that he would assume this expense. Moreover, the issue was archived on his Twitter account, in which he wrote: “In Cuenca I made a commitment to the mayor @pedropalaciosu and the citizens that, when I am president, I will sign an agreement, where it will be established that our Government will assume the liabilities and the subsidy that corresponds to the Cuenca Tram ”.
Days ago, this newspaper consulted the matter with the Minister of Transportation, Marcelo Cabrera, who replied: “These issues deserve the respective justifications. If there is any support from the national government, it will go through the Ministry of Transport and Public Works, but above all the sustainability of the project must be demonstrated ”.
Regarding the request, the Vice President of the Republic, Alfredo Borrero, responded in a diplomatic way. “I am with you to support the pending issues of the Government’s decision on the tram,” he says.
Cuenca municipality proposes Turi prison administration under two conditions
Last September, the tram completed its first year of commercial operation, and Pedro Palacios acknowledged that financially it is working at a loss, with a deficit of $ 7,000,000.
The construction of the tram began in September 2013, during the administration of Paúl Granda. At that time, the project was planned at a cost of $ 232 million, with a contribution of 80% from the national government. At present it was known that the project exceeded $ 300 million. (I)
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