During yesterday’s session, the deputies approved the Water Emergency Law promoted by the provincial government, although with some modifications that were made in committee. It is for a period of one year and contemplates the creation of a special fund of 500 million pesos that will be distributed between the Provincial Institute of Water (IPA) and the Ministry of Infrastructure to carry out works aimed at mitigating the effects of the drought.
Likewise, the allocation of 76 million pesos is established to place floating pumps in the aqueduct of Lake Musters.
DISPUTE OVER FUNDS
Deputy Tatiana Goic marked her opposition to Article 3 “which gives powers to the IPA and Infrastructure that have already been granted by other laws, where direct contracting and the destination of specific funds are added.”
He alluded to the corruption cases that were tried for previous emergency cases and stated that «we are taking the Financial Administration and Control of Public Expenditure Law into place, and I think we need the opposite, more control, since here the Executive would not need authorizations for amounts of 1.9 million ».
Juan Pais, president of the pro-government bloc, replied that “we are concerned and condemn all the acts of corruption that occurred in the province, we want them to be investigated and for the culprits to be convicted, for absolutely all the acts of corruption that outrage the citizens. ».
She indicated that “in this wording the powers of the original project were restricted, and the values of the modules are much lower than those proposed by the deputy. Due to the urgency, it is proposed to exempt the governor in these contracts, and the responsibility is placed in the IPA and in Infrastructure.
For her part, the radical Andrea Aguilera said that “unfortunately the policy developed by the IPA has been inefficient in these years, and when the emergency is declared what we have in view is the lack of timely public policies”, but anyway “We cannot lose sight of the fact that today there are citizens who suffer from this lack of water, and that is why we are going to accompany.”
The deputy stressed that «we were made to include a short-term work, but that will provide a solution in the immediate future, which is the repowering of the water intake of the Musters Lake aqueduct, which was requested by the mayors of the southern zone and the basin committee, which does not mean that the work of the Fontana Lake weir is not being demanded.
In turn, the president of the radical bloc, Manuel Pagliaroni, said that “we had a meeting with the president of the IPA, and in general we were dissatisfied, and if this project is being discussed, it has to do with a specific request from those who have the problem in their hands, which are the mayors of the affected areas.
“We would have hoped that the control and measurement of this resource would have been the usual practice, because the climatic problems come from decades ago,” added the legislator, who regretted that “there are thousands of irrigators who are not registered by the IPA and do not know how much water they use, because there is no measurement system, but they report it through an affidavit ».
Finally, the oil tanker Carlos Gómez, highlighted that “the mayors of the southern basin met with the IPA, where they received the latest SCPL report,” adding that “we have direct access to find the supporting documentation for this such an important law and they have sent it to us.
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