translated from Spanish: Alfredo Ramírez participates in Regional Forum in Zamora

Zamora, Michoacán.- Participatory budgets should not be seen as a factor of instability in municipalities, but as a tool of linking with citizens to meet the priority needs of the population, said Mr Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla.
From a press release, it was disclosed that the legislator of Morena participated in the Regional Forum for the Construction of a New Municipal Organic Law, organized by the Commission for Municipal Strengthening and Territorial Limits of the State Congress, in which heard proposals from municipal officials, tenure chiefs and law enforcement officers.
Ramírez Bedolla reported that in State Congressional Commissions its initiative of reform in the field of participatory budgets is analyzed and dictated, and direct, which aims to expand the participation of citizens in the definition of investments priorities for the development of public works in their localities.
He added that it would complement an initiative to reform the Public Works Act, and to resume the model of works for cooperation; that is, that citizens can apply for the development of specific works, contribute up to 40% of their value, and that the government covers the rest.
The practice of participatory budgeting, Ramírez Bedolla stressed, can help to eradicate corruption practices, as citizens would ensure that the costs of public works are not inflated, and that public resources are exercised correctly.
A contribution of the reform initiative presented by Ramírez Bedolla, is the recognition of the direct budget, on which the Deputy pointed out that it is an exclusive right of indigenous communities that has been validated in courts, but is not yet recognized in any law.
The lack of legislation on the direct budget if it can become a factor of ungovernability and internal conflict between town halls and indigenous communities, warned Alfredo Ramírez, as it is a right required by the original peoples. municipal governments do not have the legal scaffolding to be clear how to implement it.
Finally, the Member of Morena stressed that his reform initiatives, both to the Municipal Organic Law and the Law on Citizen Participation Mechanisms, has been enriched with open parliament practices, in which municipal authorities, heads of law enforcement and specialists have contributed their proposals with a municipalist vocation.
The forum was attended by MeP Teresa Mora and legislators Hugo Anaya, Arturo Hernández, Humberto González and Hugo Anaya, as well as the municipal president of Zamora, Martín Samaguey, and Arturo Yépez, director of Legislative Liaison of the State Government.
Source: Monitor Expresso

Original source in Spanish