I insist on two questions. First: I bear witness to what follows because when the Bridge of National Unity (Rafael Mendoza Avilés) began to be built, the writer was an official of the company that insured its construction with a Contractor’s All Risk policy, which was unknown. to Ecuador. We had to copy and translate English policy and adapt it to Ecuadorian legislation. That policy covered the work as well as the contractor’s equipment, which included the boats in which the pile drivers were installed to drive the piles into the river bed. The person who contracted the insurance was its owner, the Executive Board of Guayasa Roads, an institution founded by Don Carlos Julio Arosemena Tola to build highways and roads in the province. The committee worked not only for Guayas, but also for neighboring provinces.

Why is the construction of the fifth bridge important for Guayaquil and neighboring cantons?

It was the largest contracted insurance in the country and its validity lasted throughout the construction period. The works were carried out by the consortium of Italian companies COFIT, and their price was paid by tolls. The concession was for ten years, but it was canceled after only seven. It passed to the Roads Committee and it was transferred with all its assets and liabilities to the Provincial Council of Guayas in 1970, in a political deal between the dictator José María Velasco Ibarra and Don Assad Bucaram, the elected Prefect of Guayas. The design of the bridge, graceful with its series of columns and beams, reminiscent of the works of ancient Rome, was made by professors Morandi and Recchi. It withstood earthquakes and intense and unpredictable traffic and enabled the development of the cantons of Daule and Samborondón.

The fifth bridge is also crucial for facilitating traffic coming from the central and southern Sierra provinces. A highway that directly connects the seaport with the Durán-Boliche road will make traffic more direct, economical and more fluid for the entire road system, including the perimeter road. We must prevent the construction from falling into the wrong hands and perhaps the president can entrust it to a board of honest technicians as was done with the Port Authority of Guayaquil.

“I think he wants to distance himself from the RC and seek direct proximity to the current president,” says Aquiles Alvarez about the change of prefect for the fifth bridge

Second: the table of drug consumption contains an aporia. If the consumption of drugs in small quantities is allowed, their production and placing on the market is also allowed. Those grams multiplied by thousands of consumers add up to a sum that generates good business. Consumption cannot be classified as a criminal offense, but its production and sale can. Contradiction is shown not only in the logic of thinking, but also in life. The only thing that can be done is to intensify the education of children and young people in order to prevent their addiction and to increase the number of health centers for the treatment of drug addicts.

I think there is a lot of truth in the statement that addiction is a disease that can be cured by proper treatment in government centers, as a matter of public health. It is necessary to prevent the sick from being taken to those unhealthy slums that appear on television from time to time.

This business plus the export business produces a constant increase in crime. (OR)