Lea: Valledupar Mayor’s Office made an advance payment of $362 million to the Fire Department
The justification for this request lies, according to the lifeguards, in the fact that there are salary debts, bonuses and bonuses corresponding to different months of 2021, 2022 and 2023.
FALL IN RECENT YEARS
“In what is called a budget, which is making a calculation of the expenses and investment that an institution must make to maintain itself in a period, it cannot be based only on payroll and social security, there must also be a component of public services, fuel , training, staffing and other administrative expenses,” said the commander of the lifeguards, Alexey Petit.
The leader added that “in the last year of the Government of Fredys Socarrás they were driving around $3.5 billion”. For her part, the firefighter and journalist Mary Mestre declared that the contract with which the Government of Augusto ‘Tuto’ Ramírez “it was of $2.6 billion”.
“IT IS NOT OBLIGATION TO COVER 100%”: HACIENDA
EL PILÓN consulted the Secretary of the Treasury of Valledupar, Lily Mendoza, about the criteria for allocating the firefighters’ budget for this period, and the official explained that there is no legal obligation for the municipal administration to cover 100% of the functional budget. of the organization.
“They are a volunteer fire department and they provide a service to the community and the administration hires firefighters to the extent that their budget is defined, if that is insufficient for them, they have to arbitrate another type of service provision to sustain their operation,” Mendoza added.
Lea: In the midst of a red alert for forest fires, Valledupar firefighters remain in crisis
The resources with which the administration contracts the Fire Department come from the fire service surcharge, which is a percentage that is collected in the unified property tax.
A NATIONAL CRISIS
These cuts have also been made at the national level, according to Carlos Rojas, captain of the Pitalito firefighters, Huila, and manager of the ‘firefighters law’.
“That is why we wanted the financing of the Fire Department to come from different sources that have to do with everything that generates risks to life, property and nature,” Rojas told the national press recently.
CIPHER
46 approximately people are part of the payroll, between the front line and administrative staff.
