The President of the Association of Mayors of Puerto Rico, Luis Javier Hernández, reacted to the announcement made by the government of President Joe Biden, on the approval of $ 6.2 billion for community development program mitigation projects to address disasters (CDBG-DR), as part of the effort to accelerate the delivery of reconstruction funds to Puerto Rico.
“We thank President Biden for fulfilling his promise to release these funds. In the past, the combination of local acts of corruption, such as Whitefish, and Donald Trump in the United States, has been lethal to recovery. of our people “.
Hernandez noted that since the passage of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, municipalities have waged a clear and consistent struggle for federal funds to be allocated expeditiously.
“Excessive bureaucracy slows down, limits, blocks the reconstruction of communities. Now we, as a country, have to restore public confidence in the public service. This is achieved by generating guarantees for these funds to reach where they need to. ‘to arrive: to town’.
Hernández argued that “municipal work teams have experience in managing CDBG funds, as they know the specific needs of communities and above all, there has been an insistence on the repeal of excessive bureaucracy. Now what comes next is the approval of projects and disbursement of funds is fair, equitable and provides a guarantee of confidence in the country. “
The president of the associate mayors made several recommendations to the government of Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, the Secretary of Housing and the COR3 team. “If we want this to be the four-year period of the reconstruction, we need to have the mayors, we need to speed up the projects, make the agreements between the agencies and the municipalities more flexible, let the funds be released so that the work is done.”
In relation to the experience lived in Villalba and other municipalities, Hernández pointed out that parameters should be established with the Inland Revenue, so that disbursements to construction companies are more agile. “We have the great opportunity now to have the momentum generated by this announcement by President Biden. We now need the central government to carry out its task quickly. As always, the mayors are ready to collaborate, and to of course, to monitor when necessary, for the well-being of our communities, “he concluded.
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