Since January, IDRD has not paid some of its contractors

About 50 contractors in the District reported non-payment by the District Institute of Recreation and Sports (IDRD) since the beginning of the year, despite the fact that the work set out in the contract has been carried out according to the established schedules.

In the complaint, those affected revealed that, in addition to not paying them, the administrative area of IDRD contacted them to ask them to be up to date with their health contributions for the month of March, which has been impossible for them precisely because of the non-payment.

In total, there would be around 50 people affected, including teachers, trainers of children with disabilities and other officials belonging to different programs of the entity, who have already been affected by delays in payments.

For its part, IDRD responded to the allegations stating that some payments have already been made to contractors, corresponding to the January debt, and assured that that month “we had a change in the procedure that affected a small portion of the entity's contractors. Some received their payment from January to the beginning of the month (March), however, we have had delays with some resulting from problems of systematization of information,” said Hector Corredor, deputy administrative director of IDRD.

Finally, the official added that the entity undertakes that, no later than next week, the disbursements of money corresponding to the outstanding payments of persons who have not yet received their salaries will be made.

The representative of the capital, Julián Pinilla Malagón, assured on March 17 that reports have reached the entity stating that the service is only being provided by 764 routes, benefiting 13,709 students out of the 20,600 who can mobilize.

In addition to this, there have been complaints from parents expressing concern about their children's access to education in dignified conditions. The reason for which the supervisory body reviewed the contracts provided by the District Secretariat of Education. In these, it was found that the service is being provided to only 41% of the beneficiaries, which means that there are almost 7000 places for students who have not yet been allocated.

Another complaint is that there are 558 school routes pending to enter circulation, which are estimated to be able to provide the service by approximately 13,000 students. Representative Pinilla said: “The timely operation of the program is essential so that, in cases where the quota is allocated outside the student's locality of residence, the provision of the service is guaranteed, even more so in those places where there is a greater shortage of school quotas such as Bosa, Kennedy and Suba ”.

It should be noted that purchase orders, issued by the Ministry of Education, are not published. This generated a call from the Personería to the Mayor's Office of Bogotá, demanding that the operation of all school routes be carried out; in order to guarantee access to education.

In fact, several months ago various media outlets had already published complaints about non-compliance with the School Mobility Plan. Among the statements, one can appreciate the concern of parents, that they had to wake up their children early in the morning in order to be able to get to schools on time. In addition, they had to pay for the students' journeys, in which there were times when they had to take several buses in a single route.

Other students who were affected months ago are those who live in rural areas of Bogotá, this was because there were factors that required the hiring of operators by the Colombia Compra Eficiente agency and in addition, some operators had limitations in their operating capacity.

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