This February 27 marks the 53rd anniversary of Punto Fijo as a Municipium, the main city in the Paraguaná Peninsula, known for its strong winds that gave it the credit of “The Windy City” (literally “The city of the winds”).
By La Patilla
Feb 27, 2023
Despite its tourist attractions, a history worth telling and being a national and international reference for its natural beauties, and also designated as a Free Trade Zone and Special Economic Zone, its attributes sunk into the false promises of the Chavista regional government, which has it submerged in misery, with an irregular drinking water service, daily blackouts, sewage spills along streets and avenues, without public lighting and without paving.
The Free Trade Zone as a tourist development in Paraguaná disappeared. A sample of this is the change of traded items that most of Punto Fijo’s businesses have migrated to, from household items to food products.
Bolívar Avenue, which was best known for its innumerable white and brown line shops, looks like an abandoned area all the way from the Guaranao international port to Giradot Street, where still there is some fluent trade, but mostly dedicated to food.
If you go through the Punto Fijo entrance, where a great variety of shops part of the Free Zone used to be, you only see empty stores and even abandoned shopping centers, leaving only a small number of national chain stores that have no price difference with the rest of the country like Multimax, Daka and En Casa.
Regarding the Special Economic Zone, so designated on July 20th, 2022 by Nicolás Maduro, its purpose is to promote comprehensive sub-regional development, leveraged in its vocation towards development in technology, information technology, telecommunications, as well as energy saving alternative technologies. Technological development activities were to be complemented by relevant oil, tourism and fishing activities.
The Chavista governor of Falcón, Víctor Clark, stated some months ago that he invited investors to the Paraguaná Peninsula, which is privileged as a tourist, fishing, industrial, oil and gas reference point, as well as having a hard-working people.
However, the people of Paraguaná differ from these statements and demand that they be offered quality public services.
A city immersed in needs
For more than 20 years, Punto Fijo has had potable water supply problems. Although several Chavista governments have come and gone, the promise is always the same, but the reality is that families suffer from water shortages, an inefficient service that can be missing for periods of up to four months.
“We “paraguaneros” (people of Paraguaná) are used to living without water. We don’t know when it will arrive, because the schedule published by the Hydrological Office is never met and we have many needs. Those who do not have enough to buy water from the cisterns (tanker trucks) must go out and look for it in friends’ houses or in clandestine taps. Many have improvised push carts to do this job. The best gift that can be given to the city is to have an optimal drinking water service that reaches homes at least twice a week and not every four months,” said Aurimar Sánchez.
Carlos Ortiz, a resident of Punto Fijo, also details that electricity constantly fails and is a dire limitation, and that is why the rulers should start working so that the region enjoys quality services and then talk about tourism and the Special Economic Zone.
“Here the electricity goes dark every day, we don’t know when the water will arrive and there is rarely internet. Also, you go to a hospital and there are not even gloves, what they do is paint the facades to say that everything is beautiful, but inside there is nothing. If we don’t have good public services, how can one think about tourism and international investment?”, He pondered.
“We have nothing to celebrate”
Public workers and retirees from Punto Fijo took to the streets on February 27th, to state that they have nothing to celebrate. “Punto Fijo is run down to the floor and we are starving,” said Andrés Suárez, a city teacher.
Protesters gathered at the traffic light on Rafael González Avenue to once again demand decent wages and stable working conditions. Luis Guzmán, representing the retirees of the Venezuelan Institute of Social Security (IVSS), denounced that they will continue on the streets until the National Government complies with the provisions of the Constitution of Venezuela.
“We have nothing to celebrate on this important day for our city. Its people are famished on starvation wages,” he said.
Promises from 3 years ago
When Punto Fijo turned 50 years since its incorporation, many projects were promised, including improvements to the emergency room of the “Doctor Rafael Calles Sierra” Hospital of Paraguaná , the most important in the city. Work began to restore six operating rooms, the severe burns unit and bring other areas into operation, but to date these repairs have not been completed.
They also promised to provide support to the Paraguaná Symphony Orchestra and the Music Conservatory, which were supposed to move to a building on Bolívar Street, opposite the Punto Fijo Cathedral, but to date only a wing of the façade has received a coat of paint.
The institution’s staff continues to work in an old building, with leak problems, damaged floors, many classrooms without electrical supply and very few musical instruments. However, they continue to provide services to the population with the little donations they collect, and thus remain in in the old place.
Last but not least, they promised the remodeling of the “Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda” High Technology Center (Advanced Medical Care), which was inaugurated by the late President Hugo Chávez in 2007, through a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Cuba.
In March 2022, improvements to wall paint, floors, the electrical system and other infrastructure were delivered, but the installations has not yet not activated the free high-tech study service for patients, since the device for magnetic resonance imaging does not work. There are no CT scans, only blood tests are being done.
The Punto Fijo entrance was remodeled on February 27th, 2020, as part of the celebration of Punto Fijo’s 50 years. Security agencies were installed in the place for its protection, and a welcome portal was even built with decoration and lights, in addition to a space for the permanence of the uniformed men and an ambulance that was delivered that supposedly would be available 24 hours a day for attention of the people. Three years later, the entrance to the city has no public lighting, the road is full of potholes, and the light fixtures that were embedded in the portal were stolen.
Punto Fijo commemorates another year of being founded under the indifferent and indolent gaze of some rulers who are more busy seeing how they take advantage of the positions they hold than solving the basic problems of citizenship.
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