Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, engaged in serious blackmail with the city of Bogotá.
He told the capital’s mayor that if the Metro he wants to build is not a subway, then the Government will probably decide not to finance any more work in the Colombian capital.
The Secretary of Economic Development of the District made a statement on the issue and described the situation as extortion.
At the same time, the capital’s mayor, Claudia Lopez, assured that Petro is imposing “sabotage” with “threats” on one of Colombia’s most controversial projects.
BLACKMAIL
Upon leaving the Casa de Nariño, the Minister of Transportation, Guillermo Reyes, was in charge of announcing the blackmail:
“If the modifications are not accepted within the legal framework, the Government, to the extent that it finances 70% of the other projects, will have to stop it”.
The measure could affect other mega-projects in Bogota that have funding from the National Government, such as the second line of the subway and the Regiotram de Occidente.
“The statements of the Minister of Transportation are inconceivable; here, we see clear blackmail by the National Government towards the district administration.”
“President Gustavo Petro shows how far his whim can go, that if the subway is not built as he wants, he will stop all the contributions the Nation makes to the district,” said Councilman Humberto Amin.
The elevated subway would be clumsy for Petro: “If I make the absurdity of putting an elevated subway along Caracas, the next three generations will curse me. The elevated subway is a joke”.
WHAT IS BEHIND PETRO’S ‘WHIM’?
Between 2012 and 2015, when Gustavo Petro was mayor of Bogota, he promoted the idea of a subway that never materialized.
This Friday, February 3, via Twitter, President Gustavo Petro confirmed that he would advance his trip to China to “look for better options” for the work.
Petro feels resentment because the studies on the subway Metro were discarded when he was mayor.
Now that he is president, he would seek to impose his criteria regarding this public work.
“I know what should have been the big scandal: throwing away the finished studies of the subway of Bogotá, but it was a great silence; now it will be the big scandal just because we try to recover part of those studies and transform a project for the good of all Bogota,” he wrote on Twitter.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE IMPOSITION
Claudia López has pointed out that as long as she is the mayor of Bogotá, the first line of the Bogotá metro would come into operation in 2028, which implies not changing its design.
But if Petro succeeds, the financial consequences would be very hard, as it would imply paying an additional COL$ 2 billion (more than US$215 million).
In addition, according to local media, a change in the contract could generate international lawsuits against Colombia by other companies that lost the award in the contracting process.
With the trends #NoalPetroChantaje and #BogotáSeRespeta, former ministers, councilors, and unions have expressed their opposition to the Colombian president’s intention to change the rules of the game and called on citizens to a massive demonstration on February 15 to “demand the president to stop sabotaging this work”.
“The Metro does not belong to Petro; it belongs to the people of Bogotá”, they say.
What will happen with the development of one of Colombians’ most important and most awaited projects for decades remains to be seen.
With information from LGI