Édgar Jácome: ‘First axis of the plan is to approve Autonomic Statute’

Ecuadornews:

Édgar Jácome puts distance of the rest of candidates to the Mayorship, when saying that he looked for the candidacy; unlike the others who, he argues, swear that guilds or social organizations asked them to accept the nomination.

Why do you want to be Mayor of Quito?

As a child I dreamed of being mayor. My father was one of the workers who built the tunnels of Quito. We lived very close, in El Tejar, when I finished working I would come and talk about the impressiveness of the work and that made me fall in love with the possibility of doing big things. I asked him who could do things like that and he said ‘a super mayor’. I asked him what to do to be mayor. It’s a story of more than 41 years … That’s right. And there was this desire to do politics and point to the Mayor of Quito. I have worked more than a year to get a space for a candidacy. Nobody proposed me, as many candidates who have been called by the unions say, civil society, the so-called popular civic.

The difference with me is that I always looked for this space, I built it day by day, and in the last year it was a more constant struggle. In the end, list 7 gave me the opportunity. My project to work for a candidacy for the Mayor’s Office is the project of an administrator.

What have you done to fulfill that childhood dream?

I have been studying all my life. Studying has not been just an objective but rather the work of day to day. I studied a degree in Accounting, a PhD in the School of Management of the Central University and a master’s degree in the Andean University in International Relations and I studied a couple of graduates.

Then, I am an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur linked to the private sector. I started my first company at 24 years old. I do not define myself as a great entrepreneur, but I am a person who generates employment and entrepreneurship. 10 years ago I entered the tourist business and I am a family man, with two small daughters. My wife is the prop of my home.

What are the main lines of your action plan for the Municipality?

There is no longer room for more mistakes created by the political class of the last three decades. Our proposal, Quito returns to dream, was projected with a study of more or less a decade of successful management models that measure cities of the world. He has taken ideas of the best of each city … Yes. In security there are cities like Madrid or Santiago that have their civil guards. We propose a municipal guard to protect public space, with an armed body and equipped to protect citizens and that public space. But that is a competence of the central government … That’s something everyone says, it’s not my competence, they wash their hands. The State does it moderately or badly, and in the end nobody does it and the problem is still there. For us, managing security will be part of our competence.

The Quito project returns to dream has seven axes, the first is the approval of the Autonomic Statute, which would give Quito the autonomy and full powers to exercise immediate, comprehensive and long-term. Quito was defined as the Metropolitan District and the Autonomic Statute was not approved due to lack of political will, due to the inefficiency of the administrations.

Would this require a popular consultation?

Of course. The route is as follows: we have a draft Autonomic Statute, it is ready; We have saved the city with that about eight months of work. The first day of activities we present to the Council, this is sent to a constitutional control and the town is the one that approves the Autonomic Statute. And so we began to solve the problem, and we give Quito the administration of a Metropolitan District and not a town, as it is now.

 Will the consultation only ask about the Autonomic Statute? It is the first step. We approved the Autonomic Statute and then we have competence over the other six axes that we have defined. The second is productivity, industrialization, tourism and employment; the third is roads and transportation; the fourth, the sustainable ecological plan; the fifth axis, the security that protects the public space; we provide the city with at least 10,000 security cameras, which is a deficit in the capital, and we manage human and technological tools for security. The sixth is the territorial order and housing. And the seventh is culture, which is like the economy and like tourism: you do not have to regulate it.

What is your governance plan within the Council?

The councilors should devote only two things: legislate and oversee. It has been that great tangle of corruption in which this Metropolitan Council, which has been highly questioned, is involved. We all know that there are two councilors who, instead of being in jail, go in shackles to the Council. To get around this big problem, the only thing that needs to be done is that the councilors dedicate themselves to complying with the law.

CV

He is a doctor in Accounting and Audit by the Central University. He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. He is an entrepreneur with 10 years in the tourism sector. (I)

Source: https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/edgar-jacome-candidato-alcaldia-quito.html