Property tax collections tumble; More landslides affect highway travel; Gov’t allows cities to buy vaccines; Pawkar Raymi festival to promote healing

Jueves, 17/3/2021

Hola, Todos –

I need some time to take care of an ever increasing “to do” list, so I will take a vacation next week, and be back el lunes, 29/3/2021.

Actividades –

De la pagina cultural –

Sanación, el eje del Pawkar Raymi (Healing, the axis of Pawkar Raymi) – Pawkar Raymi is also the fiesta de florecimiento (festival of flowering) and this year will have a healing ceremony to strengthen Andean knowledge. It will be el domingo on the Huanacauri hill, also known as Boquerón, in Turi, south of Cuenca. The site was picked because of the importance of this hill in the Cañari culture with its magical-religious connotation as elements of the Andean worldview. The organizers of the ceremony, the Coordinación de Cultura y Turismo del Azuay, the parish GAD of Turi, and AgroAzuay, prepared an agenda that started hoy with sharing chicha in the Hierba Buena community a las 10:00. The Pawkar Raymi ceremony el domingo will be a las 12:00 and will be accompanied with music and dance and under biosecurity measures. The activities seek to strengthen Andean principals such as reciprocity.

Otras cosas –

Titular – Derrumbes son reisgo constante (Landslides are a constant risk) – There are constant landslides on the vía Cuenca-Girón Pasaje. Machinery from MTOP and the cities of Girón and Santa Isabel are working to keep the road open to traffic. There have also been sinkholes in the El Ramal and Sarayunga sectors. This road which connects Azuay with El Oro, is one of 2 alternatives to get to Guayaquil with restrictions on the vía Cuenca-Molleturo-El Empalme. The problems start at km. 32 with continuous rockfalls with more problems at km. 42 & 49 and near km. 51, 55, & 58 in the Rircay, Léntag, and Parque Extremo sectors. At km. 66, in the El Ramal sector at the entrance to Santa Isabel, there is a 20 m. long sinkhole. <The picture shows a stretch of missing, curb, gutter and apron.> From km. 75-95 are more problems including a large rock in the middle of the road at km. 79. <The picture shows a rock the same size as the SUV driving around it. Someone needs to put a set of emergency flashers on that rock.> There is another sinkhole at km. 104. Repairs are problematical since that road was part of a 10 project national contract that ran into trouble and needs to be resolved.

The Unión Nacional de Educadores (UNE) in Cuenca is helping seniors get vaccination appointments. The project was organized by pzza shop owner Luca Pallanca. (El Mercurio)

Solidaridad en inscripción para la vacuna (Solidarity in registration for the vaccine) – About 50 volunteers set up at the Unión Nacional de Educadores (UNE) in Cuenca to help seniors get appointments for vaccinations. This initiative was promoted by Luca Pallanca to help seniors who are not in the data bases of IESS or MIES to navigate the MSP website. Pallanca is a social activist known for providing food from his pizzeria to immigrants without a regular income. There are 4 computers set up at the site. On one, the data for the senior is entered, on another, access codes are sent to email addresses, and on the 3d volunteers enter data for the senior and get appointments. Because of the slowness of the last step, other volunteers with their own phones and laptops help.

The Coordinación Zonal 6 de Salud reminded people that if they are affiliates of the Seguro Social Campesino, el Instituto Ecuatoriano de Seguridad Social (IESS), or in the MIES records through the human development bonos, they do not need to register on the web page of the Plan Vacunarse. If you are on these lists, you should receive a text message or email within 72 hours that started yesterday confirming you are registered in the vaccination plan. If you don’t get a message, call 171. <Or have your facilitabor call. Now don’t you wish you’d spent the lockdown learning the language of the country you live in?> Ecuador is waiting for the arrival of 1.3 million doses next week, and will continue vaccinating health personnel, geriatric patients, and public servants on the front line.

Mercados renuevan contratos de arriendo (Markets renew rental contracts) – Vendors in the 6 mercados and 4 municipal plazas can renew their rental contracts for up to 10 years. Vendors at the 6 itinerant platforms can renew their contracts for up to 6 years. <Since I doubt there are any gringos in these groups I’m not going to bother translating the process.>

Recaudación municipal por los prediales sigue a la baja (Municipal collection of property taxes continues to decline) – Municipal taxes collected in enero y febrero de 2021 are lower than in the same months of 2020 <Remember those good old days before the pandemic and lockdown?> In enero, 2021, the city collected $11,680,317 down from the $15,176,326 collected in enero, 2020. Collections for febrero were $3,916,649.90 in 2021 and $4,291,364.07 in 2020. Collections up to the middle of marzo of this year were $,2076,976. The city predicted collecting $17,673,952.57 in property taxes in 2021 from roughly 121,000 taxpayers.

The city improved its digital systems for on line payments at enlinea.cuenca.gob.ec or download the Cuenca en Línea app which is free. Once you’ve entered the web portal enlinea.cuenca.gob.ec, pick the pago de Impuestos, tasas y contribuciones option. Then fill out your personal information, cedula number or RUC. Taxpayers can also use the Kushki payment system at https://enlinea.cuenca.gob.ec/impuestos.

Fijan parqueos para los turistas (Parking for tourists set) – Through the Fundación Municipal Turismo de Cuenca (FMTC) and EMOV EP, the City has implemented 8 parking zones in the centro histórico for tourist transporters. The parking spaces are outlined in green with numbers indicating the time limit, such as 20 minutes for loading and unloading. These are “metered” spaces similar to the blue parking spaces that drivers of private cars should use. The spaces are on Manuel Vega, Mariano Cueva, Antonio Borrero, Luis Cordero, Benigno Malo, General Torres y Simón Bolívar.

Funcionarios del Gobierno se habrían vacunado (Government officials have been vaccinated) – While Ecuador presented a project before the UN Human Rights Council for equitable vaccine distribution worldwide, that hasn’t applied internally. On Thursday, the Fiscalía raided the MSP (Ministerio de Salud Pública) in search of a list of people who were vaccinated and which authorities of the MSP refused to deliver. That list includes Government officials. The Pablo Arturo Suárez hospital in Quito was also raided for delivering incomplete lists in which people who had publicly said they had been vaccinated before they were eligible, were erased.

Autorización a tres Municipios del país (Authorization to 3 cities in the country) – The Procuraduría General del Estado (National Attorney General’s Office) cleared the way for mayors in 3 cities to purchase vaccines on their own even though there is an international agreement that drug companies can only sell to national governments. Cuenca Mayor Palacios said that the budget to purchase vaccines is limited, but the city will have help from private businesses, universities and small industry. <Which will probably vaccinate their own employees and students.> Cynthia Viteri, mayor of Guayaquil said they have $25 million to buy 2 million doses, and Quito’s Jorge Yunda has $20 million.

And that´s all for today so Hasta ? –

Jeanne
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Editor’s note: Jeanne’s Periodico is a translated digest of news from the Cuenca daily newspaper El Mercurio. If details, such as event dates and times, do not appear in the translation, they did not appear in the newspaper (please don’t ask her for them). The text between the carrots, or guillemets (< … >), is Jeanne’s personal opinion and not part of the news translation.