In October 2019, Pope Francis in an audience with the Italian soccer team, after inspecting his childhood memories, defined the concept of happiness; he said, give a child a ball, “even a rag ball works miracles”, he affirmed.
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The mission of governments is to enable this concept of happiness to develop in the right conditions. Precisely one of the priorities of this government for the sports sector is infrastructure. Four hundred thousand square meters in 165 sports or recreational settings for a value close to $773 billion. For this purpose, in this four-year period, the Ministry of Sports contributed about 92% of the resources for the execution or adaptation of these works.
Of the 165 scenarios financed in this government, 40 are executed in municipalities that are part of the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET), 83 in municipalities with a higher risk of displacement and/or forced recruitment of children and adolescents and 52 Municipalities with populations belonging to ethnic groups (black communities, Afro-descendants, Raizales or Palenqueras) will benefit. The execution of these projects generates 31,162 new jobs nationwide.
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The good behavior of the sports infrastructure has been reflected in a significant growth of the DANE Civil Works Production Index (IPOC). For the first quarter of 2022, the component of outdoor sports buildings registered growth figures for the first time since the pandemic began, with an increase of 26.2% compared to the first quarter of 2021.
The construction of these venues with the purpose of benefiting the most vulnerable communities is decisive, since four departments (Antioquia, Bogotá/Cundinamarca, Córdoba and Valle) accumulated 43% of the sports venues in the country.
The construction of these scenarios is decisive to benefit the most vulnerable communities.
In contrast, the regions with the highest levels of multidimensional poverty present the lowest levels of accessibility. While in Bogotá the average time to access a sports facility is 15 minutes on foot, in Amazonas, Vichada, Guaviare or La Guajira it exceeds 30 minutes.
Regarding inter-administrative agreements with municipalities and governorates, we continue to monitor 267 signed in previous terms, for more than $523 billion. 237 of these projects have been delivered in this administration, 8 are under construction and 22 in alleged non-compliance, for 19 of the latter, the Ministry has filed a lawsuit against the executing entities, in addition to the accompaniment of the Comptroller General, in 7 departments and 111 Projects.
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The transparency of the works is an essential principle. To avoid goals, the Ministry defined in October 2022, a new agreement model with the territorial entities where only agreements are signed to execute projects with proven technical, legal and financial viability of the competent area of the Ministry. In addition, the inspector must endorse the studies and designs of the project before starting the work.
But we go further. The territorial entity must deliver a policy of compliance with its obligations and demand guarantees from the executor, in which the Ministry is a beneficiary. Also, a maximum of 20% of the Ministry’s contribution may be drawn as an advance and subsequent payments may not exceed the percentage of progress of the work. To this is added that the executors must accredit a minimum experience of 200% of the project budget and it is prohibited to allocate resources from the Ministry to pay expenses, such as management fees.
To close the path to any step of corruption, in December 2021 the Ministry contracted with Findeter, the technical assistance service to select the executors and/or auditors of infrastructure projects. With this scheme, 54 auditors have been contracted for construction contracts entered into by territorial entities.
Once the prohibition established in the electoral guarantees law has ended, Findeter will be able to sign agreements with the territorial entities, to contract both the execution and the supervision of the projects. This scheme facilitates the control of resources by eliminating the procedures for their transfer to the municipalities, but they continue to be linked to the project, since they must provide the property on which it will be executed, participate in monitoring the execution of the work, receive it satisfactorily and take care of its maintenance.
Inter-administrative agreements to finance infrastructure projects have been used since previous governments to join efforts with territorial entities. In this administration we have improved the scheme with new tools for supervision and auditing, and with execution follow-up tables, with the preventive accompaniment of the control entities. Additionally, and unlike other administrations, this government proposed the implementation of a new scheme for the Sports Sector, which allows the infrastructure to be executed, with transparency and efficiency, without transferring resources to territorial entities.
The resources of sport are sacred and the phrases of Pope Francis urge to give the ball to the child, entertain him, teach him and guarantee him the beginning of a happy life with a future. Let the ball roll.
WILLIAM HERRERA
SPORTS MINISTER
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