About ¢63 billion($119 million) will be distributed among the 81 municipalities across the country to repair the cantons’roads after the approval of Law 18001 (Law on Transfer of Powers). After a long discussion in Congress on Tuesday, October 12th, 36 legislators decided to support the law project.
With this new law, each municipality in Guanacaste will receive around ¢770 million ($1,450,000), which will allow them to address the poor road conditions in the canton. The money will be invested over a period of three years (2016-2018). Streets, sidewalks, bike paths, pedestrian walkways, parks, bridges, drainage, sewers and even geothermal works related to roads will be included as part of the public roadways, as well as signage and road markings.
To Guanacaste Legislator Juan Marin, the biggest winners from the agreement are the citizens who will have better roads.
“This benefits and contributes to a substantial improvement in the territories, on roads for production, for tourism, for cities, construction of sidewalks, in improving the national road network and road safety in the cantons,” he said.
Legislator Maureen Clarke, from the National Liberation Party (PLN- Partido Liberacion Nacional), commented that the municipalities have a very large responsibility and few resources. “They have a great responsibility and the resources aren’t enough. We have seen the inability of the central government, especially in fulfilling their duties. The local governments are responsible for 80% of the canton’s networks and they don’t have even a quarter of the resources to deal with it,” said Clarke.
It should be noted that municipalities have the responsibility to carry out all of the procedures related to roadwork on the canton’s public roadways, so good investment and implementation of resources will depend on the efficiency of each municipality.
The law will take effect as soon as it is published in the official newspaper, La Gaceta.
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