‘We work in a friendly atmosphere with a fruitful technical exchange. At times it is a quite heated debate, but the general climate is pleasant, with a wide predisposition to dialogue”, assured Deputy Minister of Planning, David Guachalla.
He reported that after the installation of the work team this Saturday with the mission of defining the date of the census exercise, in 10 hours of work, 350 of the more than 700 activities included in the schedule of the previous stages, prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), were reviewed.
He explained each activity is broken down in detail, which is why it takes time, to the extent that an approximate calculation of the time that would remain until the commission, which works by ‘time and matter’, completes its work.
The day before, Guachalla accused the rector of the Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University, Vicente Cuellar, of looking for an excuse to leave the Technical Commission.
He based his conjecture on the behavior of Cuellar, who after a two-hour break said he left the meeting because he had not been given the supporting documentation for the work carried out by the INE.
An hour later he returned to the facilities of the Autonomous University of Beni, to deliver a letter addressed to the Minister of Development Planning, Sergio Cusicanqui.
In it, he requested a ‘simple photocopy of the itemized proposal and the complete documented schedule, prepared by the INE for carrying out the Population and Housing Census’, as well as information regarding the budget contemplated for the execution of each of the the activities.
He argued these data will facilitate corrections to adjust the stages and deadlines to advance carrying out the Census in 2023.
The deputy minister explained to the press that the information requested by Cuéllar is detailed by virtue of the agreement assumed on Saturday morning, when the six proposals of the census process were presented, including the work of the INE.
At the same time, in support of the strike, this Saturday five representatives of civic committees from La Paz, Tarija, Pando, Oruro and Beni arrived in the city of Santa Cruz and met with the president of that unelected structure from Santa Cruz, Rómulo Calvo.
In the end, Calvo announced at a press conference that all those actors in the November 2019 coup d’état will promote a national strike starting on November 7.
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