(CRHoy.com). Carlos Alvarado, President of the Republic, lowered the tone to the possibility of managing a contingency credit for impacts of the climate change to address the damage caused by the rains registered in recent days.
This Monday the Executive Power signed an emergency decree in 13 of the cantons most affected by the downpours in order to speed up attention to the damage suffered.
The list includes: Limón, Pococí, Guácimo, Matina, Siquirres, Talamanca, San Carlos, Río Cuarto, Upala, Los Chiles, Guatuso, Turrialba and Sarapiquí.
Currently, the National Emergency Fund has 4 billion colones destined to attend to situations originated during the rainy season. However, these resources would not be sufficient taking into account that the period of more rainfall is just beginning and will continue until November.
The Executive Branch is considering 4 options, of which the eventual credit is the last. The first 3 possibilities are to take ordinary resources from public institutions to pass them to the emergency fund, use budgeted money from other areas or use savings from debt service.
“It is an option. Not a certainty today. The first thing to do, and the stage that follows, between the municipalities and the National Emergency Commission (CNE), is to make quantifications and also point out the causality. In other words, that effect was derived from the event. Sometimes you want to bring an important work, but that was not affected by the event. That is outside the law, it cannot be done. There has to be a stage of evaluation and quantification, that’s where source management comes from. This one that I mention would be a fourth source”, Expressed President Alvarado.
If the Executive Power decides in this way, the president considered that it would be “cheap financing” and that the government would emphasize that the impacts of climate change (generated by more developed countries) are harshly perceived in countries like Costa Rica.
“A good rate, a good term, would be sought. Understanding this in the framework not of a normal emergency, but in already systematic issues of climate change and the climate crisis. There we would move this option, exhausting the other options. It is not plan ‘A’”, Indicated the president.
After the heavy rains over the weekend, there are 2,960 reported events, 323 landslides and 2,251 flood incidents in 36 affected communities. ç
As of this Monday, 2,674 people had been mobilized to 49 temporary shelters in the cantons of Talamanca, Limón, Matina, Sarapiquí, Turrialba, Jiménez, Upala, Guatuso, San Carlos and Los Chiles.
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