During this Saturday morning, the Mayor Dr. Francisco Azcué, accompanied by the Vice Mayor Magdalena Reta de Urquiza, members of his government team, provincial legislators, council members, and representatives of intermediate entities, presented the management report of his first year at the head of the Municipality.
First, he remarked that the path that began a year ago, “began much earlier when a handful of people agreed on the idea that it is not good to look the other way and that change is achieved by working with commitment. We came to put people, companies, and organizations at the center of the scene; to replace welfare with real inclusion; to lower the tax burden and eliminate bureaucratic obstacles. We came to work to definitively change the course of the city”.
The first months were not easy “due to the increasingly harsh economic context, with inflation that eroded resources and a slowdown in activity that depressed income. The legacy of populism was not free” since “we found ourselves with a debt estimated at more than 8 billion pesos, a liability in the EDOS of more than 1 billion, and more than 60% of the commitments dollarized with maturities during 2024” to which must be added “maturities of more than 5 billion pesos for committed public works resources and debts whose services originated more than 12 months ago”.
In addition, Azcué reported, “we found in the personnel payroll more than 3,000 monthly workers, hired with and without contributions. In the year prior to our inauguration, more than 600 workers with contributions were incorporated. The municipality depended on national and provincial co-participation funds to finish paying operating expenses. This placed the Municipality in a situation of weakness, with few possibilities of complying with the services demanded by the population”.
AUSTERITY, CREATIVITY AND AUDACITY
Faced with this challenge, “instead of intimidating us, it compelled us to resort to a series of tools that would be the hallmark of this first year of management: rigorous austerity; creativity to find new forms of management and audacity for decision-making. The national economic context challenged us and we had to take command, with firmness, both politically and economically”.
In that aspect and when talking about results, the mayor stated that although in the first semester there was a 35% drop in income compared to the previous year, thanks to an improvement in spending, a 45% saving was achieved, which allowed for sustaining the provision of services, carrying out salary adjustments, and facing the second half of the year with an investment program of around 1.5 billion pesos.
After highlighting the commitment and work of the government team to sustain that first stage of management, Azcué listed that the progress with modernization processes and administrative simplification were significant elements for the reduction of spending “which resulted in the saving of millions of pesos. In purchasing processes, the average payment time was reduced by 50%, which influenced the price offered by suppliers, also encouraging competition”.
It was also achieved “a saving with the planning of purchases, reducing the number of operations by more than 30%. The Tax Reform is a milestone that will remain marked in local history since a total of 306 municipal taxes that implied a tangle of procedures were repealed, modified, or eliminated”.
POVERTY HURTS US
“We said it a year ago and we ratify it now: the public agenda mobilizes us but poverty hurts us. We do not underestimate the situation. We have a plan, we know where we are going and how to do it, without ceasing to attend to the urgent, we cannot be continuously making a cult of the emergency” stressed Azcué.
Through trained and committed territorial operators, “we reached places where the municipality was not before, allocating resources that were previously used by the privileges of politics. Through the Relevar Project, we executed the initial diagnosis to carry out territorial approaches; when we talk to each person, with each family, we begin to understand many things that do not appear in the numbers, that are not part of a statistic. The goal is to offer tools so that every resident of Concordia can get ahead through effort and merit”.
“This was the beginning of a path that will change history. Today the Relevar Project, with 60% progress, provides information on 20 thousand residents of impoverished neighborhoods with a traffic light mechanism for vulnerability, social and housing risk. In 2025 we will have detailed information on 100% of the popular neighborhoods of Concordia”.
The Education area has been the protagonist of key initiatives “to begin to rebuild true opportunities in forgotten families. Social Development has made the control and good use of public resources a cult of transparency. Sports, Culture, and Youth have made significant contributions in this first year and the best is yet to come”.
Following that line, the mayor announced that work will continue on the process of transforming the CDIs into Municipal Nursery Schools and guaranteeing the more than 600 children from 0 to 3 years old, who are in the surveyed neighborhoods, access to quality education” as well as increasing the sports and cultural offer through inclusive programs.
A SAFE, ORDERLY AND MODERN CONCORDIA
To achieve a safer, more orderly, and modern city, it requires interaction between the public and private sectors, with a Municipal State that is “a facilitator, manager, active and efficient, rigorous in enforcing the rules and obsessive in respecting them. We left it signed in the July Pact: the local government and social institutions support police, prosecutors, and judges. Concordia will be unyielding with the goal of peaceful coexistence. Security is non-negotiable. There is no space for those who want to alter daily life”.
The decentralization experience “put the citizen at the center of decisions, using innovative methodologies to build a more efficient, transparent, and close government with the needs of the community. We are building a new government, with open data, with citizen participation and with links to local institutions, multilateral alliances, and advanced municipal governments”.
Through the Undersecretariat of Decentralization, 11 branches were created to bring services closer to residents and Neighborhood Commissions were strengthened.
Regarding Traffic, Azcué indicated that digital systems have been implemented that improve efficiency and transparency, along with a series of measures such as awareness campaigns and helmet distribution. Progress was made on projects to improve the metered parking system and the compaction of abandoned vehicles. The issuance of licenses was streamlined with the “Your license in one day” program; vehicle and breathalyzer controls were intensified, among other measures.
The Security Operational Unit carried out preventive patrols and collaboration with other institutions, having a presence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at different events held in the city. In the Costanera, security was reinforced in recreational activities and green spaces. The panic button system registered 545 new entries and 189 reinstalls, with active measures to protect victims.
RESTORE TRUST AND RECOVER PUBLIC SPACE
Azcué recalled that when the administration began, Concordia was coming from a flood that was beginning to recede, to which were added strong storms and the flood in May. “Everything one brought, we had to leave for later and start working on the emergency. One of the first tasks we had was to restore the trust of suppliers, which had been broken”.
“Concordia drags a marked deterioration of public space, streets, and squares. We made an effort to maintain unpaved streets, dumping more than 40,000 cubic meters of gravel on more than 600 streets in 20 neighborhoods with the particularity that we did not have national public works and we have done everything with the municipal budget” affirmed the mayor.
With the start-up and proper maintenance of the Asphalt and Municipal Concrete Plants, more than 1,350 cubic meters of concrete pavement were placed, covering 7,000 square meters to fix 400 potholes, in addition to 630 tons of asphalt pavement, to cover 3,000 square meters and more than 200 potholes.
In addition, important work was carried out to recover storm drains and the entire piping of the Concordia stream was toured to guarantee drainage and work is being done on the repair of the mouth. A framework agreement was also signed with the UNER Faculty of Food Sciences to work on monitoring and control plans for water bodies such as leachate lagoons at Campo El Abasto.
Regarding waste collection, Azcué acknowledged that there are difficulties but first he made a recognition to the workers in the sector “who, beyond the difficulties, always offer themselves to do their job. Concordia needs at least 16 collection trucks in operation and when we took office there were only six. 10 trucks were recovered, the operability of the fleet was improved” anticipating that “we are on the eve of receiving two trucks purchased with our own resources”.
Regarding public lighting, the Mayor highlighted that thanks to the reorganization of spending, “a cap could be established on the cost of public lighting in order to relieve taxpayers, benefiting more than 2,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
PRODUCTIVE, TOURIST AND ENTREPRENEURIAL CONCORDIA
“We promote the development of the different actors of the local and regional economy and at the same time, we foster an optimal and attractive environment for the arrival of new investments” indicated Azcué, highlighting in this sense that work is being done with competent agencies on the development of a project in the southern zone that includes a Barge Port, modernization of the Industrial Park and a Logistics Activities zone.
Regarding entrepreneurship and the social economy, the focus was on personal development and not on collective welfare. For this, support was provided in infrastructure and diverse training, also reaching older adults.
Regarding what was done in tourism throughout 2024, in addition to participating in promotional events, work was done in coordination with EMCONTUR on various programs such as “Explora Concordia”, “ConcorPass”, Meeting Tourism, and events. An example of this is that the Convention Center hosted more than 350 events through which more than a million people passed. “These actions allow Concordia to go from being an emerging destination to a consolidated one”.
COMPREHENSIVE, ACCESSIBLE AND QUALITY HEALTH SYSTEM
In terms of public health, 2024 has been a year of consolidation with the implementation of primary care services and prevention programs that have benefited thousands of residents. Concordia has a network of 19 Health Centers that have reinforced their capabilities in pediatric, obstetric, kinesiology, dental, and clinical care, as well as improving the availability of supplies, medicines, and trained personnel.
Weekly vaccination campaigns were developed in collaboration with the Epidemiological Node; the Pediatric Stimulation and Rehabilitation Center was opened in Villa Adela and mental health clinics in areas with high vulnerability conflicts. Work was also done on administrative reorganization, the formation of new work teams, and the allocation of more resources for maintenance and building improvement tasks.
“One of the great satisfactions of this first year was the opening and consolidation of 24-hour care in strategic Primary Health Care Centers, starting with the Nébel neighborhood, then Los Pájaros and soon in Villa Adela and Osvaldo Magnasco, with the presence of an ambulance permanently” highlighted Azcué, affirming the commitment that “the goal is to keep all CAPS open 24 hours a day”.
During 2024, the Directorate of Primary Care and Medical Specialties added more than 70,000 consultations. Also, 27,000 doses of calendar vaccines were applied.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Closing his presentation, the mayor of Concordia made it clear that “this project did not come to see what was done before or to make excuses but to generate the capacity to respond to the enormous difficulties and problems that we residents of Concordia have and I ratify: we came to work to definitively change the course of the city”.
“This first year of administration consolidated the team, the lines of work, and the commitment to each of the residents of this wonderful city and to the provincial project led by Rogelio Frigerio. The best is yet to come; we have taken great steps in 2024, establishing the path and leaving a mark. Advancing together, the Concordia we want to be awaits us”
First, he remarked that the path that began a year ago, “began much earlier when a handful of people agreed on the idea that it is not good to look the other way and that change is achieved by working with commitment. We came to put people, companies, and organizations at the center of the scene; to replace welfare with real inclusion; to lower the tax burden and eliminate bureaucratic obstacles. We came to work to definitively change the course of the city”.
The first months were not easy “due to the increasingly harsh economic context, with inflation that eroded resources and a slowdown in activity that depressed income. The legacy of populism was not free” since “we found ourselves with a debt estimated at more than 8 billion pesos, a liability in the EDOS of more than 1 billion, and more than 60% of the commitments dollarized with maturities during 2024” to which must be added “maturities of more than 5 billion pesos for committed public works resources and debts whose services originated more than 12 months ago”.
In addition, Azcué reported, “we found in the personnel payroll more than 3,000 monthly workers, hired with and without contributions. In the year prior to our inauguration, more than 600 workers with contributions were incorporated. The municipality depended on national and provincial co-participation funds to finish paying operating expenses. This placed the Municipality in a situation of weakness, with few possibilities of complying with the services demanded by the population”.
AUSTERITY, CREATIVITY AND AUDACITY
Faced with this challenge, “instead of intimidating us, it compelled us to resort to a series of tools that would be the hallmark of this first year of management: rigorous austerity; creativity to find new forms of management and audacity for decision-making. The national economic context challenged us and we had to take command, with firmness, both politically and economically”.
In that aspect and when talking about results, the mayor stated that although in the first semester there was a 35% drop in income compared to the previous year, thanks to an improvement in spending, a 45% saving was achieved, which allowed for sustaining the provision of services, carrying out salary adjustments, and facing the second half of the year with an investment program of around 1.5 billion pesos.
After highlighting the commitment and work of the government team to sustain that first stage of management, Azcué listed that the progress with modernization processes and administrative simplification were significant elements for the reduction of spending “which resulted in the saving of millions of pesos. In purchasing processes, the average payment time was reduced by 50%, which influenced the price offered by suppliers, also encouraging competition”.
It was also achieved “a saving with the planning of purchases, reducing the number of operations by more than 30%. The Tax Reform is a milestone that will remain marked in local history since a total of 306 municipal taxes that implied a tangle of procedures were repealed, modified, or eliminated”.
POVERTY HURTS US
“We said it a year ago and we ratify it now: the public agenda mobilizes us but poverty hurts us. We do not underestimate the situation. We have a plan, we know where we are going and how to do it, without ceasing to attend to the urgent, we cannot be continuously making a cult of the emergency” stressed Azcué.
Through trained and committed territorial operators, “we reached places where the municipality was not before, allocating resources that were previously used by the privileges of politics. Through the Relevar Project, we executed the initial diagnosis to carry out territorial approaches; when we talk to each person, with each family, we begin to understand many things that do not appear in the numbers, that are not part of a statistic. The goal is to offer tools so that every resident of Concordia can get ahead through effort and merit”.
“This was the beginning of a path that will change history. Today the Relevar Project, with 60% progress, provides information on 20 thousand residents of impoverished neighborhoods with a traffic light mechanism for vulnerability, social and housing risk. In 2025 we will have detailed information on 100% of the popular neighborhoods of Concordia”.
The Education area has been the protagonist of key initiatives “to begin to rebuild true opportunities in forgotten families. Social Development has made the control and good use of public resources a cult of transparency. Sports, Culture, and Youth have made significant contributions in this first year and the best is yet to come”.
Following that line, the mayor announced that work will continue on the process of transforming the CDIs into Municipal Nursery Schools and guaranteeing the more than 600 children from 0 to 3 years old, who are in the surveyed neighborhoods, access to quality education” as well as increasing the sports and cultural offer through inclusive programs.
A SAFE, ORDERLY AND MODERN CONCORDIA
To achieve a safer, more orderly, and modern city, it requires interaction between the public and private sectors, with a Municipal State that is “a facilitator, manager, active and efficient, rigorous in enforcing the rules and obsessive in respecting them. We left it signed in the July Pact: the local government and social institutions support police, prosecutors, and judges. Concordia will be unyielding with the goal of peaceful coexistence. Security is non-negotiable. There is no space for those who want to alter daily life”.
The decentralization experience “put the citizen at the center of decisions, using innovative methodologies to build a more efficient, transparent, and close government with the needs of the community. We are building a new government, with open data, with citizen participation and with links to local institutions, multilateral alliances, and advanced municipal governments”.
Through the Undersecretariat of Decentralization, 11 branches were created to bring services closer to residents and Neighborhood Commissions were strengthened.
Regarding Traffic, Azcué indicated that digital systems have been implemented that improve efficiency and transparency, along with a series of measures such as awareness campaigns and helmet distribution. Progress was made on projects to improve the metered parking system and the compaction of abandoned vehicles. The issuance of licenses was streamlined with the “Your license in one day” program; vehicle and breathalyzer controls were intensified, among other measures.
The Security Operational Unit carried out preventive patrols and collaboration with other institutions, having a presence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at different events held in the city. In the Costanera, security was reinforced in recreational activities and green spaces. The panic button system registered 545 new entries and 189 reinstalls, with active measures to protect victims.
RESTORE TRUST AND RECOVER PUBLIC SPACE
Azcué recalled that when the administration began, Concordia was coming from a flood that was beginning to recede, to which were added strong storms and the flood in May. “Everything one brought, we had to leave for later and start working on the emergency. One of the first tasks we had was to restore the trust of suppliers, which had been broken”.
“Concordia drags a marked deterioration of public space, streets, and squares. We made an effort to maintain unpaved streets, dumping more than 40,000 cubic meters of gravel on more than 600 streets in 20 neighborhoods with the particularity that we did not have national public works and we have done everything with the municipal budget” affirmed the mayor.
With the start-up and proper maintenance of the Asphalt and Municipal Concrete Plants, more than 1,350 cubic meters of concrete pavement were placed, covering 7,000 square meters to fix 400 potholes, in addition to 630 tons of asphalt pavement, to cover 3,000 square meters and more than 200 potholes.
In addition, important work was carried out to recover storm drains and the entire piping of the Concordia stream was toured to guarantee drainage and work is being done on the repair of the mouth. A framework agreement was also signed with the UNER Faculty of Food Sciences to work on monitoring and control plans for water bodies such as leachate lagoons at Campo El Abasto.
Regarding waste collection, Azcué acknowledged that there are difficulties but first he made a recognition to the workers in the sector “who, beyond the difficulties, always offer themselves to do their job. Concordia needs at least 16 collection trucks in operation and when we took office there were only six. 10 trucks were recovered, the operability of the fleet was improved” anticipating that “we are on the eve of receiving two trucks purchased with our own resources”.
Regarding public lighting, the Mayor highlighted that thanks to the reorganization of spending, “a cap could be established on the cost of public lighting in order to relieve taxpayers, benefiting more than 2,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
PRODUCTIVE, TOURIST AND ENTREPRENEURIAL CONCORDIA
“We promote the development of the different actors of the local and regional economy and at the same time, we foster an optimal and attractive environment for the arrival of new investments” indicated Azcué, highlighting in this sense that work is being done with competent agencies on the development of a project in the southern zone that includes a Barge Port, modernization of the Industrial Park and a Logistics Activities zone.
Regarding entrepreneurship and the social economy, the focus was on personal development and not on collective welfare. For this, support was provided in infrastructure and diverse training, also reaching older adults.
Regarding what was done in tourism throughout 2024, in addition to participating in promotional events, work was done in coordination with EMCONTUR on various programs such as “Explora Concordia”, “ConcorPass”, Meeting Tourism, and events. An example of this is that the Convention Center hosted more than 350 events through which more than a million people passed. “These actions allow Concordia to go from being an emerging destination to a consolidated one”.
COMPREHENSIVE, ACCESSIBLE AND QUALITY HEALTH SYSTEM
In terms of public health, 2024 has been a year of consolidation with the implementation of primary care services and prevention programs that have benefited thousands of residents. Concordia has a network of 19 Health Centers that have reinforced their capabilities in pediatric, obstetric, kinesiology, dental, and clinical care, as well as improving the availability of supplies, medicines, and trained personnel.
Weekly vaccination campaigns were developed in collaboration with the Epidemiological Node; the Pediatric Stimulation and Rehabilitation Center was opened in Villa Adela and mental health clinics in areas with high vulnerability conflicts. Work was also done on administrative reorganization, the formation of new work teams, and the allocation of more resources for maintenance and building improvement tasks.
“One of the great satisfactions of this first year was the opening and consolidation of 24-hour care in strategic Primary Health Care Centers, starting with the Nébel neighborhood, then Los Pájaros and soon in Villa Adela and Osvaldo Magnasco, with the presence of an ambulance permanently” highlighted Azcué, affirming the commitment that “the goal is to keep all CAPS open 24 hours a day”.
During 2024, the Directorate of Primary Care and Medical Specialties added more than 70,000 consultations. Also, 27,000 doses of calendar vaccines were applied.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Closing his presentation, the mayor of Concordia made it clear that “this project did not come to see what was done before or to make excuses but to generate the capacity to respond to the enormous difficulties and problems that we residents of Concordia have and I ratify: we came to work to definitively change the course of the city”.
“This first year of administration consolidated the team, the lines of work, and the commitment to each of the residents of this wonderful city and to the provincial project led by Rogelio Frigerio. The best is yet to come; we have taken great steps in 2024, establishing the path and leaving a mark. Advancing together, the Concordia we want to be awaits us”