Editorial: MOPT shirks responsibility

Around 3,071 km of roads commissioned so far by the Ministry of Transport will be the responsibility of local governments. The executive branch is only responsible for strategic routes to ports, borders and airports. The municipalities doubted whether there were enough resources to cope with the new tasks and suspected that this was a simple attempt to “get out of a difficult situation”. The facts seem to prove them right, which has important consequences for the part of the national network that is the object of controversy.

The Department of Transportation argues that there could be benefits to handing priority setting to local governments, but with that power comes community complaints about roads being left out of priority focus. It needs to be pointed out that priorities mean there won’t be enough resources to maintain all the new roads, and it’s not to forget the complaints of municipalities about the current lack of budget to maintain state roads.

These roads will certainly compete with the new responsibilities that the decree assigns to local governments, and the power to set priorities will include decisions to redirect resources currently invested in the state network. National roads play a vital role in the states through which they pass, and municipalities cannot remain indifferent to their deterioration.

The authorities also claimed to intend to transfer responsibilities gradually, but the decree immediately redefined the paths. Efraim Zeledón, deputy minister of infrastructure and executive director of the National Roads Commission (Conavi), said the decree only set parameters for identifying routes outside the strategic network in order to understand which ones can be transferred to the state road network.

This explanation does little to reassure local governments, because once the definition is set, there is only one step left to move the tracks, and judging by what is happening so far, that could happen quickly. The decree was issued in September; however, the government has pledged to push for a law to regulate the process in the coming months. The usefulness of the decree remains to be explained, if a law is to have this function.

On the other hand, the government has had very limited success in advancing its legislative agenda. Nothing guarantees the timely introduction of the bill, let alone its speedy approval in Congress. In the meantime, what happens to the bill?

Without knowing what the law will say, the Ministry of Transport has been encouraged to discuss funding with municipalities. At a recent meeting, Minister Mauricio Batalla proposed taking 12% of revenue from a single fuel tax. Dissatisfied This is because, according to its leaders, Conavi has already allocated 21.75% of its tax revenue to the same roads. In addition, the mayor of Rio Cuarto, José Miguel Jiménez, said that “it is only a verbal proposal, nothing is written.” The official added that the decree will take effect on July 10, but they have not yet indicated how much money it will cost or what form it will take.

Perhaps the most worrying reason is Conavi’s frank inability to take part in “non-strategic” routes. Zeledón said many mayors are aware that, currently, MOPT and Conavi cannot take charge of routes that are not strategic for local governments due to budgetary constraints. “It is difficult for us to take care of them,” he said.

Pretending that others are taking care of them with half the resources seems incompatible with the idea of ​​“empowering” the mayor to better set priorities.