The relationship between the government and Chile’s most media mayors seems to have returned to their worst days, this time, due to economic measures and the criteria used to decree quarantines in the national territory.
This morning, the president of the Chilean Association of Municipalities and Building of Puente Alto, Germán Codina, again questioned the maneo of La Moneda and this time he pointed to the lack of sensitivity and excess triumphalism of the government, an issue that marked the beginning of the week after the different opinions of the Chilean and Argentine governments for the management of the crisis.
Comparisons with other countries have been a recurring theme in the Executive, in fact Minister Jaime Mañalich usually splits his daily balance sheets, noting the progress of the coronavirus in the countries most affected.
Asked about the criteria used to decree quarantines, he replied: “I have been quite critical of the Minsal’s secrecy regarding that and other information that I feel are too biased. I feel like this is the time to work as a team because we are in the 5th minute of a very complex match and some already sing victory showing numbers and I actually think that in addition to reflecting that there are people who are indolent… because putting you looking at this with statistics and numbers takes away sensitivity to the process we live in.”
“Here we have almost 100 deaths and there are 100 families suffering. If they are more or less than in other countries that is not the point. The point is that we have a lot of people who are suffering, so in the ministry should make more information about everything to the municipalities so that we can make interventions,” he added.
“We tell everyone who spends comparing figures every day with the international level. When someone sees what happened in Italy, Spain and the United States and believes that they have a balance in the account to continue to be wrong in some measures, for example a specific measure: I believe that when it is established that the mandatory use of masks for public transport is established, first the price of masks should have been set, leave ideologies aside and say here the price is set” , he pointed to the building alluding to the Spanish government that this week began the delivery of 10 million masks on public transport.
“Secondly, the most interested in generating good public policy and avoiding contagion of the pandemic is the state, then the state should give away masks and alcohol gel, sorry we are in a situation of catastrophe where for example someone who lived selling Super 8 on the micro, do you think you will have silver to go to buy alcohol gel or masks about prices?” Claimed. “The logical thing is that the state, in order to prevent this from expanding into poorer or more vulnerable sectors, has to be the state that goes out to play and turn its back on these people.”
“If Chile or Argentina or other countries… that is, what we have to worry about is that with the resources we have (…) we minimize the pain that is going to be caused to this country with the deaths of relatives of so many people who can die with this pandemic, it is not time to take joyful accounts and be comparing ourselves to countries that have done it wrong and have faced a complex winter” Alleged.
“If we were the other way around in the world and the pandemic had come here first, because here we were in winter, we would be living in a situation as catastrophic as the one in Spain and Italy. It saved us that we were leaving the summer to have enough time to see how they stumbled, to see how strong the pandemic in the northern hemisphere to take precautions here and so on and all we still have few mechanical fans, with the problem that there are not enough masks or alcohol gel, with little protection for health officials , those are the concerns that the authorities should have and not be comparing numbers every day.”
“The bureaucracy is winning”
“This is a Siamese pandemic because it comes stuck with the economic pandemic, so in reality all the measures and quarantines that the government implements should come hand in hand with intervention from the state with the help of informal and independent workers, people who live day to day, I here in the commune I have many people who live in those conditions” , said Mayor Puente Alto and president of the Chilean Association of Municipalities, Germán Codina, about the current situation of his commune, after a partial quarantine was decreed last week.
“I get messages daily from several dozen people who are asking us to incorporate them into the solidarity pots that we are funding as a municipality to reach those families who won in the day to day selling Super 8 or singing on the Metro and who need to ‘stop the pot’ as they say vulgarly.” “So we need government announcements to become an urgent reality, I feel that bureaucracy is beating this whole package of economic measures,” he said in Radio Universe.
“In the Ministry of Social Development, where a committee of experts, mainly economicists, was set up, people from three different fields should be added: first Comptroller’s office because these measures go through a check; secondly, the micro and small business guilds, Conapyme and the Multigremial of Entrepreneurs; and the third group are the municipalities,” he added. “I think what is missing is to work as a team because those economists who are at this table that created the ministry are not the ones who are going to implement these measures and will not be faced with the day to day. So the logical thing, so as not to start from zero foja, is to articulate with those who are going to do it.”
“The municipalities are the backbone of the state in the territory and finally all the financial aid packages will end up going through some program with some municipality. So the logical thing is that we are already with the Comptroller’s, with the realm of entrepreneurs and municipalities sitting at the same table so that they do not end up giving ideas or thinking that things are going to work and it is actually being planned wrong, it could be that it is being planned poorly,” he said.
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