The Environmental and Territorial Planning Office, known as PAOT, is a key player in the development of the City, guaranteeing the right to a healthy environment and the rational use of the territory.
I warned in February that, despite the important role of the PAOT, the position of the citizens who make up the Technical Advisory Committee expired in December 2022.
Months later, the procedure to elect the people from academia and civil society who will make up this advisory body was approved.
I then pointed out that the election or re-election of councilors was urgent, since in addition, 4 of them make up the Government Council along with the Secretariats of: Environment, Urban Development, Works and Mobility, as well as the Planning Institute.
By the way, the person who owns PAOT is not a member of this Council. At the sessions, she is only a permanent guest with the right to speak.
One of the tasks that the Law entrusts to the Government Council is to approve the budget with which the Attorney General’s Office will operate. Regarding the City’s Economic Package for 2024, I would ask:
Who and how approved the PAOT Budget project, if its Governing Council is not legally integrated?
That is to say, leaving aside the role of this authority in the urban transformation of the capital, the economic figure that PAOT presented before Congress and before the Ministry of Finance was not legally approved.
The lawyers would say: “I refer to the evidence”; since, without yet publishing the Budget that Congress approved for CDMX, on December 21, the call for PAOT councilors was published.
With this publication it becomes evident that the appointment of the PAOT Technical Advisory Committee is out of time, since currently those who occupy those 10 citizen spaces have expired their assignment for more than a year.
The delay in these appointments affects PAOT tasks, such as ensuring that authorities and citizens comply with the regulations that protect the environment and regulate urban development in the capital.
To make matters worse, the problem does not end there, another of the Governing Council’s tasks is to approve the Programs and Work Plans presented by the owner of PAOT.
Almost a year after being re-elected, with what Plans and Programs has PAOT worked? Are they legally approved?
Worse still, that Council must give its opinion on the report that its head delivers to Congress.
We will have to wait until February to learn about the promotion, dissemination and defense of the environment and a liveable city that PAOT has carried out in 2023.
Among some setbacks for Congress, PAOT receives 2024 with the process that formally began on December 21, to elect its Citizen Councilors.