The National Service for Comprehensive Care for Adults Deprived of Liberty and Juvenile Offenders (SNAI) this week launched a bidding process to contract a building company to complete the penitentiary. The bidding results will be published on December 9.

The Compañía Puentes y Calzadas Infraestructuras S.L., the same group that is currently building another prison in the coastal province of Santa Elena, is one of the companies is one of the proespective bidders, according to the website of the National Public Procurement Service (Sercop).

The building should be completed in 300 days, about 10 months.

At the beginning of the year the Ecuadorian president, Daniel Noboa, indicated that the prison would be erected in the province of Pastaza, but published documents point to the town of Archidona.

Although little is known about the project because the SNAI classified the information, residents in that municipality have already rejected the project, as Archidona has been hosting a detention center with capacity for 312 inmates for two decades now.

“Archidona is a city of peace. Say no to jail,” Mayor Amada Grefa complained.

Locals see a new prison center as a threat for the safety of some four thousand minors who attend schools near the SNAI grounds.

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