Seeing the long lines and crowds of beneficiaries of the Citizen Income Transit Program that were repeated in different venues of the country of the agrarian Bank In its first month it seems that Colombia returned to the times when yes or yes it was time to go to the offices in person.
The reality is that there would be no reason. The pandemic popularized digital payments to such an extent that the Government itself used them to reach the most vulnerable with the usual monetary transfers such as Families in Action or those that were born at that time such as Solidarity Income and VAT Compensation.
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In the midst of the confinement due to the covid-19 confinements, more and more people chose to open digital products such as Daviplata, Nequi or Movii to receive those incentives through your cell phone.
However, none of them was used to transfer the payments of the new Transit program to Citizen Income, with which the Government seeks that more than 3.3 million households in poverty receive one million pesos every two months. The executive used a Direct agreement with Banco Agrario so that it is in charge of delivering the incentive to all the beneficiaries of the country.
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More than 1.9 million beneficiaries (94% of the participants) received, until last May 30, the deadline for collection, the transfer
“Pretending that a single bank can assume the entire operation under conditions of efficiency is to deny the reality of the country and its territory to the detriment of the collection conditions (lines and availability of cash) and leaving aside the important advances in financial inclusion that were coming carrying out the State throughout the years of operation of the monetary transfer programs ”, assures Susana Correa, former director of Social Prosperity of the government of Iván Duque.
Susana Correa, former director of Social Prosperity, criticizes the process.
And it is that year after year tenders were opened for the delivery of these resources in different areas and the best in each one of them won the project. For example, after the blow that the pandemic left in homes in 2021 Davivienda through its product Daviplata It was in charge of making the national payments for the Familias en Acción and Ingreso Solidario program, while making the Basic Income payments in Medellín. People will also be able to access Solidarity Income transfers through the Movii application.
“I totally disagree with having returned to the monopoly of Banco Agrario in social payments. By doing it by public invitation, it forced us to compete with the rest and advance technologically. The user could be given poor service and higher costs because the entity is more efficient in some points, such as rural areas, but in others, such as in large cities, it does not have as many offices as Davivienda can have, with whom we normally competed”, warned the former president of Banco Agrario Francisco Mejia.
Francisco Mejía presided over the Banco Agrario in the government of Iván Duque.
WEATHER / Courtesy
In addition to this, he denounced that from the bank they have thrown back part of the technological developments that were advanced in the Duque government. On the one hand, he says that the tool is not being used moving account and, on the other, that they took the electronic wallet that they had been developing off the map. “The wallet was almost ready when I left, but my surprise was that the new administration removed the VP of technology, put the project on hold and put it in the freezer. It seems that ‘politicking’ is coming to the bank again, ”he sentenced.
In all the criticisms about queues to collect transit to Renta Ciudadana, forget that there have always been queues, that’s why we stagger payments and give ample deadlines for collection. We cannot forbid queuing, but we guarantee decent income and not handouts of 25, 50 and 90 thousand pesos pic.twitter.com/lnFhhlkgK9
— Cielo Rusinque Urrego 🇨🇴🇫🇷 (@cielo_rusinque) May 5, 2023
What the government says
Cielo Rusinque, director of Social Prosperity.
Photo: Mauricio Moreno. time
In their defense, from the Government they assure that the decision to directly elect the agrarian Bank as the only operator of the payments of the Transit to Citizen Income program was the result of an “exhaustive analysis” and that its wide coverage allows it to reach all corners of the country.
“Their selection was the result of an exhaustive analysis that evaluated the advantages over the use of the Demand Aggregation Instrument (IAD) of financial services that have been used. All the documentation and justification, including the previous study, is available on the Secop portal,” he said. Cielo Rusinque, current director of Social Prosperity.
In addition, from the Government they say that the following key aspects were taken into account in the election: its wide coverage in 1,108 municipalities and non-municipalized areas of Colombia, including three indigenous councils. In addition to the fact that it has 793 offices strategically located throughout the national territory and that this is the only financial entity present with its own office in 471 municipalities.
Regarding the direct signing of the contract without opening a tender, the director of social prosperity He excluded that he rejected contracting directly with Banco Agrario since it offered him the cheapest offer compared to the values of other banks on the Colombia Compra Eficiente platform. However, for experts this is not true.
“That’s not true. The banks that participate in this Demand Aggregation Instrument only offer their costs when a formal listing event takes place, which the DPS did not. They indicate that they used the values of the Colombia Compra Eficiente Price Simulator, but this is not binding, so the prices offered by banks in healthy competition are always lower than those indicated by said simulator,” says Correa, former director of Prosperity Social.
And he continues: “Now, the curious thing is to see how, knowing this, the DPS –due to its many years of experience– decides to compare the values of the Price Simulator with the formal offer that Banco Agrario gave them. Even setting aside the lower price that they recently contracted with Davivienda for the operation of the Jóvenes en Acción program, they are more than 1,000 pesos less for each transaction. I imagine that they will have very strong arguments to justify this decision, which implies a greater expense for the Nation for each transaction that the bank carries out for the program. This, without referring to the fact that most of the payments that the bank has made are subcontracted with other operators, they are not made by the same bank”.
In total, more than 1.9 million beneficiaries (94 percent of the participants) received the transfer of the first cycle of Transit to Citizen Income. This figure is less than the 4 million people who benefit from Solidarity Income, program that ended last December and was born with the pandemic.
The bank offered three modalities to claim the incentive. The first was by crediting the account; the second, by transfer, which could be collected at the teller window of both the bank and the banking agents, for which the beneficiary received the corresponding information via text message to his cell phone. And finally there was the option of electronic draft, whose withdrawal was made by ATM. In this case, all instructions were also sent by text message.
“Some points appeared with people lining up after the May 1 holiday, the first business day of the month since progressive payment began. However, the beneficiaries were assisted and guided in the payment mechanisms, in such a way that the process flowed normally. This situation was also due to the fact that some people were lining up before the offices opened, but they quickly evacuated once the public was served,” said Banco Agrario spokespersons.
“The election responded to an exhaustive analysis,” Cielo Rusinque Urrego, director of Social Prosperity
What would you say to the critics of the election of Banco Agrario?
It was the result of an exhaustive analysis that evaluated the advantages over the use of the Demand Aggregation Instrument (IAD) for financial services that had been used. The process complies with the provisions of articles 209 and 355 of the Political Constitution, as well as with the concordant norms. In the cost analysis, historical rates at the national level were taken into account.
What was done to fix the long initial lines?
Given the situation presented in the first days and in order to avoid crowds in the collection of the incentive of the first cycle of Transit to Citizen Income, Social Prosperity gave a series of instructions to the beneficiaries to avoid long lines, collect effectively and quickly the transfer
Enrollments in the program are suspended, what does it mean?
We receive multiple alerts about the possible mishandling of registrations and considering that a new election season is coming, there is an even greater risk of politicizing this exercise. Preventive suspension does not mean that payments for current beneficiaries will be suspended.
ECONOMY
