I was encouraged by the news that President Petro demanded that his Minister of Housing respond for the Quibdó aqueduct, and that his Minister of Agriculture appear to revive coffee production.
Governing is solving problems.
But it took my spirits away to see the farce of cabinet resignations and that at the time of writing this the only one who is leaving is one of those who should have remained, Jorge Iván González, director of the DNP.
The attitude of responding to pressing problems is correct.
But it is only the beginning.
The solution to problems demands experts.
On this the president has moved in the opposite direction.
It seems as if cabinet crises are not about attracting even more expert people, but rather more loyal or ideologically aligned ones, even if they know little.
The departure of Jorge Iván González proves it.
Besides, saying no to the president is fatal;
Those who say yes without a word end up losing the Pan American Games and messing up their passports.
Those who say no leave.
Experts must govern both to do good and to neutralize evil.
For the first, they analyze solution routes, the cost/benefit of each alternative, evaluate times and movements, manage expectations, define how, when, where, how much, from what source, who and for whom.
For the second, they must prevent bad people from appropriating entities and budgets.
There are always evil forces lurking on the edge of problems.
These forces know that problems require money to solve them and the bigger they are, the more money will arrive.
When it arrives, they will take charge of appropriating it and ensuring that it does not reach the solution.
There are cases that are already legend.
The San Andrés water desalination plant comes to mind, which was paid for several times in various governments, and the resources repeatedly disappeared.
Many people forced their participation in the process and the desalination plant remained unbuilt.
Something similar happened with the money for the municipalities of the Caucana boot, which was negotiated in the midst of protests on the highway between Cali and Popayán, but did not reach the residents of those municipalities.
The Quibdó aqueduct may well be part of this evil saga.
Our Governments have been deficient and, many times, flagrantly incompetent, because in the face of the variety, quantity and simultaneity of problems, they lack a system of government and management that organizes the forces of solution and opens space for the forces of evil.
Many times it is “delegated upwards”.
Let us remember the case of EMCALI.
For many years, the unions and managers of public companies in Cali abused expenses, lost control of costs and reduced their effectiveness and efficiency until they exhausted the company's ability to generate income, generating deficits that became unbearable.
At that moment they called on the National Government to appear, invoking an imminent risk in the provision of essential public services in a large city.
That ended in a multi-year intervention by the respective Superintendency and in a socialization of the company's deficit through the public treasury.
It was delegated up.
That is why continuous quality management is essential.
These frequent changes of officials, many of them without experience, without knowledge of the public sector, which is a true minefield, mean that solutions do not arrive and the problems increase.
It is a perfect situation for abusers of institutions, creators of regulations for personal gain and those greedy for public money, who work 7x24.
We can cite a positive story, related to coffee, to show how things can be done well.
About 15 years ago it was concluded that it was essential to renew coffee trees throughout the country if production of more than 7 million bags per year was wanted.
The coffee growers' proposal was that the Government help farmers renew their coffee trees.
With a massive renewal of plants, five years later production rose to 14 million bags.
The double!
Good solutions take involved experts, good plans, time, discipline and consistency.
The subordinates are obliged to warn the president what can and cannot be done with the State's money, even if it costs them their position, as seems to have happened with the director of the DNP.
Better if it doesn't cost them their position.
If the Government of life does not adopt good quality public administration, which is what it was elected to do, the forces of evil will wither it.
Scolding ministers and asking for resignations could be a good start.
But it's just that.
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