He Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) denied being in negotiations with the Municipality of Montevideo (IMM) to give him a non-refundable loan with the aim of facing the water crisis, a possibility that strongly crossed the mayor yesterday Caroline Cosse with the national government.
The IDB, which through a statement addressed to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) expressed solidarity “with the Uruguayan people for the worst water crisis in the last hundred years,” he explained that “you are not managing reimbursable or non-reimbursable resources (technical cooperation) with the Municipality of Montevideo in the framework of the water emergency”.
The executive who heads the Frente Amplista Carolina Cosse had assured that he was negotiating a loan for the purchase and distribution of bottled water in Montevideo and that the MEF blocked it. The Ministry of Economy is the only institution with the capacity to manage these loans.
The IDB did highlight “the long tradition of working with national and subnational governments to improve the lives of their people” and offered the national government help in dealing with the water crisis.
Montevideo currently maintains two investment loans and two non-reimbursable technical cooperation loans with the Inter-American Development Bank for sanitation, urban drainage and solid waste.
The Municipality of Montevideo quickly reacted to the IDB statement. Guillermo Moncecchidirector of Environmental Development, considered that the entity’s statement “says the obvious.” “Today there is no agreement with IM. To have it we had to have permission from the MEF and they denied it. They blocked us,” he wrote on Twitter.
Yesterday, the secretary of the Presidency and presidential candidate of the ruling party, Alvaro Delgado, questioned Cosse for publicly accusing the Ministry of Economy. “It seemed very strong to me because on such a sensitive issue where there are external factors, we cannot play small politics to see what advantages we can get,” she said.
Source: Ambito
