At least about 17 infrastructure projects on land roads have been identified to boost public investment in fixed capital formation.
The identified sections are part of the Guatemala initiative does not stop (GNSD) and after the approval of the Priority Infrastructure Law by the Congress of the Republic in 2024 a process of administrative creation is still pending.
Mobility, road maintenance and public investment in fixed capital is one of the most relevant issues in the last year, given the experience at kilometer 44 on the Palín-Sucuintla highway that collapsed one of the logistics radial circuits on the southern coast.
The projects extend on commercial and tourist routes, so it is considered a commitment to improve in the different infrastructure and mobility indices.
The routes
Raúl Bouscayrol, president of the Board of Directors of the Guatemalan Chamber of Industry (CIG) said that as a sector they are part of the GNSD Country Plan Infrastructure Commission, which brings together public-private institutions and through which more priority projects have been established to contribute to the country’s competitiveness.
At present, there were 17 priority projects that require investment, pending allocation of resources, distributed in five large routes or projects, detected by the Commission.
He explained that these are the route: North and South CA-09; The route: CA-02 West and East; Route, C-50 Regional Ring and other complementary projects.
Sections to prioritize
Juan Carlos Zapata, Executive Director of the Foundation for the Development of Guatemala (Fundesa) added that the projects are listed in article 87 of the Priority Infrastructure Law that refer to Central American roads, all Puerto A Puerto, border to border.
By consulting him about the estimated investment of these infrastructure projects, he said that there is still no investment for all projects yet and this will vary the progress of preliminary studies.
“At present, there are 17 priority projects that require investment, pending allocation of resources, distributed on five large routes or projects”
Raúl Bouscayrol, president of the Guatemala Chamber of Industry (CIG)
He clarified that the law indicates that first an analysis of the situation of the existing road network should be done and then a road development plan on which it will have to prioritize what projects can be carried out first and which already have preinversion studies, as well as facilities for the right of way.
Regarding the allocation of resources for these resources infrastructure projects, Zapata commented that it is already defined in the regulations and that it must start operating in 2026.
While Julio Héctor Estrada Domínguez, president of the Finance Commission of the Congress of the Republic, emphasized that in the future discussions of the project of income and expenses budget for 2026, the structuring for the operation of the Road Infrastructure Law is expected.
Emergency declaration
In the current national context and the proximity of the arrival of winter, Estrada Domínguez, said that there is a low execution in works loaded in the budget to the Departmental Development Councils (CODEDES) as well as in the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing (MICIVI).
He announced that in this case the Ministry of Public Finance, has the availability to do interventions with fiscal cash resources, or VAT Paz, so “advances can be made to advance with some infrastructure projects”.
“I consider that the Executive has to address it as an emergency; a specific task force from here and during Holy Week to be able to expedite the works, make an enclosure, study cases by departments and put all the public institutions involved to make online guarantees in the same place, because it will not give time to execute those projects,” he said when you referred to the rest of the year of the execution.
“I consider that the Executive has to address it as an emergency; a specific task force here and during Holy Week to be able to expedite the works”
Julio Héctor Estrada Domínguez, president of the Finance Commission
On the other hand, he added that there is little Guatecompras activity that is the state acquisition system in the Codedes and the MICIVI for infrastructure, and not the volume of projects that would have to be seen given the budget allocations for this objective, which increased substantially in the current budget.
“It is an intravenous injection of total impact, in employment, demand for construction materials, supplies, labor, teams throughout the country and that added to the rest of the investment that reaches Q26 billion with a municipal and ministerial part, is what at this time can serve as a boost to the economy and reactivation,” said Estrada Dominguez.
How to stir the projects?
One of the proposals of the president of the Finance Commission when deepening the conceptualization of declare an emergency is to have a capacity to open a space between the institutional units involved, gather all the directors or heads of units that have to provide guarantees, planning addresses and although everything is on a platform to dispatch the reports and then the comments, that procedure is currently being very slow.
At that emergency meeting, he cited for example Estrada Domínguez, must be the Ministries of Finance, Communications, Segplán, Comptroller General, among other entities to make the guarantees, and the special keys that are needed in the Guatecompras systems to be able to advance and expedite.
“It is an opportunity to have an impact on a second year of government; it is valuable for the executive as for the mayorships have to strengthen their capacity and monitoring at this time to accelerate the execution,” he said.
In the MICIVI, maintenance programs and the first awards are not hired at the reception of offers are by the end of May, “and being honest everything will be released in July and that with the condition if there are no challenges, resources, revisions and fixed we start inactive a semester,” he concluded.