NewsWhore
05-25-2009, 06:00 PM
Hamlet Hermann, who at was at the helm of the Metropolitan Transport Authority in its better days, writes in Hoy newspaper today criticizing recent investments in traffic reorganization announced by the Fernandez administration. He criticizes the fact that the government discarded more efficient solutions, such as those implemented in Curitiba, Brazil and Bogota, Colombia in favor of the Metro, and says that the government is concealing the metro's real finances. "They are afraid of telling the truth about the small number of users... They are hiding the foreign indebtedness and the interest payments so that their sacking of the treasury is not revealed".
"The monthly payroll for the staff and maintenance crew of the Metro is being camouflaged so no one can discover that the metro is milking our finances", he writes, in more prosaic terms. And he is critical of the government announcement of major financing with Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. His criticism is that the overpasses are built for cars and SUVs and not for the use of moto-conchos or public buses, or trucks. "It will then become an investment for cars and privately-owned SUVs that transport a minimum number of passengers," he writes, complaining that the money would have been better spent on purchasing more OMSA buses.
"Thanks to all those works under construction, we will see how the directors of these projects resume their respective personal projects as private corporations with money that appears to have come from who knows where. And we will see how the vicious circle of mass poverty continues, while government officials multiply their fortunes". Meanwhile, public transport will continue to be distorted, but there will always be someone to blame: the transport unions, he writes, explaining that this has always been their way of justifying getting rich at the taxpayers expense.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)
"The monthly payroll for the staff and maintenance crew of the Metro is being camouflaged so no one can discover that the metro is milking our finances", he writes, in more prosaic terms. And he is critical of the government announcement of major financing with Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. His criticism is that the overpasses are built for cars and SUVs and not for the use of moto-conchos or public buses, or trucks. "It will then become an investment for cars and privately-owned SUVs that transport a minimum number of passengers," he writes, complaining that the money would have been better spent on purchasing more OMSA buses.
"Thanks to all those works under construction, we will see how the directors of these projects resume their respective personal projects as private corporations with money that appears to have come from who knows where. And we will see how the vicious circle of mass poverty continues, while government officials multiply their fortunes". Meanwhile, public transport will continue to be distorted, but there will always be someone to blame: the transport unions, he writes, explaining that this has always been their way of justifying getting rich at the taxpayers expense.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)