Fernando Paredessenior operations officer of the World Bank for Guatemala, defends that a model can work in the country under which the residents themselves maintain the roads, recognizing the additional work for the communities, and an additional income generation mechanism to what already exists.
However, for the transparency of the process to be guaranteed, there must be a commitment on the part of actors who participate in the design and supervision of the works. This is an excerpt from the conversation he had with Prensa Libre.
How to expedite the execution of existing and new funds for rural roads in Guatemala?
To expedite resources, the best way is for the entities that make decisions in Guatemala to be clear about the problems, importance and benefits of rural roads.
First of all, Guatemala has one of the lowest connectivity indices in the world, 134 out of 141 and the explanation is very simple: they are roads, unpaved networks that are subject to weather phenomena such as rain, which, if not given the constant treatment, as the years go by they practically require a new gap to be opened.
Although it is true, the main idea of a road is that it generates income in the economy, it must also be understood that due to the conditions of the country there are roads that must be built by a moral and supportive principle of the State. If we understand this, there would be no reason why we should not prioritize investing resources in rural roads. It is appropriate to indicate that the plan being worked on is extremely aggressive because it tries to serve a third of the country’s territory. Why not two thirds or more? There are no resources available and because the country does not have the management capacity beyond this part that is being prioritized.
What are the challenges that the country faces in terms of transparency of this type of infrastructure?
There are several challenges. The first is that, due to the very nature of the rural road, investment is practically orphaned in the public administration, There is no constant and sufficient allocation to pay attention to this area year after year. The second is the management model. Rural roads cannot be served with the typical model of a quote, a contract to a private supervisor and public investment is made. For this model to be successful, responsibility must be transferred to the beneficiaries who are organized in territories not necessarily in the same municipality. Transparency is complicated, because the type of investment made depends on the morals and ethics of the supervisory entity. If the responsibility of supervision is transferred to the communities without dispensing with the technical professional supervisor, this situation changes, because the residents are more interested in their work being carried out on time, at the moment and under the contracted qualities and that basically the community should participate from the moment of design and selection of the work to be done, in this way, items that are very complicated to supervise in the field would have the guarantee of fair and efficient execution because the community would be along with the contractor and the supervisor.
And then, we must understand that if this is not linked to a plan, what it would be generating is that, for a year we responded to the needs of the population, but if we do not assign maintenance resources, After five years we will probably have to invest twice as much. The success of the model requires identifying mechanisms under which the residents themselves maintain the roads, recognition of additional work for the communities, and an additional income generation mechanism to what already exists.
Which regions of the country are most in need of a rural road plan being properly implemented?
The plan that is being worked on has identified the third part of the country, the one that is most in need due to economic issues and the abandonment of investment in past decades: practically the center of the country that goes from Quiché, some departments further south to the border. With El Salvador, routes have been identified that make sense to work for reasons of incorporation of products into the markets and connectivity due to the number of people. There are regions in the west served for some reasonbut this sector has quite a justification for why it should be prioritized in terms of public investment.
Do you think that the model that has been talked about of payment for performance indicators in public works is viable for rural roads?
This is an instrument that works more with large-scale paved network projects. Although the principle is the same as that sought for efficiency of public spending, it will not necessarily work on rural roads that are works very subject to natural and climatological issues; there, participation from the beginning of the maintenance management of the roads works much better. communities. Now if the construction and maintenance mechanisms are important, because this makes public investment in maintenance, management and saving resources more effective, The builder will be interested in investing as little as possible in maintenance and that frees up resources to be used to complete the rural network.
There is a difference with paved roads and it is a problem of the country’s vision: I can build a road and assign maintenance resources until the sixth year, but there is a process of decomposition of the road. The construction and maintenance mechanism guarantees that maintenance will be provided throughout the life of the project, different from the rural road, which requires smaller but constant resources and should not be lacking, Otherwise the cost of bringing the road to its original location is very expensive. They are mechanisms that can be complemented. Above all to cover that deficit that is critical in terms of road connectivity.
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