Innovations for Successful Societies Oral History Project

An initiative of
the National Academy of Public Administration, 
and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, 
Princeton University.



Oral History Program 	Series: 	Governance Traps	
			Interview no.:	J33






Interviewee: 		Maria Isabel Patiño
			

Interviewer:		Matthew Devlin

Date of Interview:	November 4, 2009

Location:		Bogotá, Colombia		



Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace & Justice
Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540, USA www.princeton.edu/states 

DEVLIN: 		Today is November 4th, 2009. We're in Bogotá, Colombia, with Maria Isabel Patiño, who is Director of the Urban Development Institute during the second mayoral administration of Antanas Mockus from 2001 to 2003. Thank you so much for joining us.

PATINO:	My pleasure.

DEVLIN: 	I thought we might begin by asking you to briefly describe your background, how you came to be involved in municipal government here in Bogotá. 

PATINO:	I'm a lawyer. I graduated from Los Angeles University and then I attended t  Tulane University where I received a master's degree in admiralty law, which doesn't have anything to do with what I do today. Then I took the Louisiana State Bar and I passed. I practiced law in New Orleans  for almost  two years around 1988. Then I moved to Spain. In Spain you don't take exams. You do other things-stamps and bureaucratic paperwork-and I updated my title and worked at a local law firm for a year. 

	Then I came back because I wanted to live here. In fact, I had my [U.S.] green card. I returned it, which is like [giving away] a big prize. I didn't want to have it anymore since I was going to live here. I joined the Flower Growers Export Association and dealt with a [U.S.] dumping order imposed on flowers from Colombia. I dealt very much with the U.S. structure and administration. Even though I do not like many things about the country-especially foreign policy-I think that it's a good disciplined nation and I learned a lot from them. 

	So, then I worked with the pension funds. I trained at the Wharton School-very, very intense, tough training. Then from the Private Pension Funds Association, I jumped into the banana growers' trade association. I spent some time in the Urabá Region, which is a very difficult region.  Besides dealing with international trade issues,  I was very much into organizing social and environmental programs, both among the flower growers and the banana growers. 

	Then, by coincidence, Antanas Mockus called me by the end of 2000, and offered me to run the Instituto de Desarrollo Urbano (IDU). To be honest with you, at the time he offered me the job,  I didn't have any idea of what the Institute was and had no background whatsoever in construction of infrastructure for mobility. I couldn't recognize the difference between flexible or rigid materials for road construction. 
	But, you know, I had problems in Urabá because I was very much against the paramilitaries who had strong influence in the region where bananas for export where grown.  Aftar some time working there and being very focused in the development of Banatura, the social and environmental program, I left the region and came back to Bogotá. I joined the Mockus administration. I hardly knew Antanas. However, he may had recognized my name because  during the time I run the Flower Growers Trade Association, I was very exposed to the media due to the  certification process  of Colombia by  the U.S. in the battle against drug trafficking. Maybe, through my interventions with the Colombian and the U.S. government  he followed my career. After a short interview I joined the institute. If you think back, I don't know if Antanas should have done that, because he didn't know me. He makes you fill out an exam-a four-page test-where he measures whether you are strong and if you are able to negotiate and if you are inclined to negotiate too much. He concentrated very much on the way you do things. So I filled out the test and, for whatever reason, I ended up there.

DEVLIN: 	So this is his own personal test that he puts together for people?

PATINO:	Yes, I think that he drafted it and he uses that test for his employees and people working around him.

DEVLIN: 	When we were speaking earlier, you said one of the first challenges you faced was this issue of contracts. What was the problem there? What were you stuck with when you came in?

PATINO:	The development of Bogotá, over a very short time, has been kind of crazy. This is a city that grew in population faster then it did in infrastructure, as in a lot of Latin American countries. So there was a very strong necessity of having a massive transportation system-also known as Bus Rapid Transport, BRTs. There was this discussion between the metro [rail] and the flexible component, as we called it, the BRT. 

	Peñalosa [Enrique Peñalosa Londono, Mayor 1998-2000] decided to implement Transmilenio in Bogotá in 1999; he only had a year and a half left before [there would be a] change in mayors. With very good intentions they wanted to put into service  the main roads of Bogotá for the Transmilenio system, using the ones already in existence, but "rebuilding"  them. The entity in charge of performing these activities in the Urban Devlopment Institute (IDU), which is in charge of the design, construction and maintenance of the mobility infrastructure in the citi of Bogotá.  The selection of the roads by IDU,  was justified by transportation demand studies.  In the hustle of getting things done, they hired  final and detailed design activities and further  construction in one whole contract with a single contractor. Also, designs included a   material,  a by-product of cement  that operates in rigid concrete structures  and is supposed to compact and dry faster that other traditional materials. This product  known in Spanish as "relleno fluido"  was used in rebuilding  three of the four  roads that were rebuilt or adapted for the Transmilenio system. Unfortunately the structures failed in all roads built showing huge cracks in all pavements and creating a very difficult situation with public opinion and contractors. 
	The implementation of the Transmilenio system  had been the big dream of the city. People trusted that their tax money was well invested. At the very beginning, everyone was  very happy with the quality of the transportation service. However, failure of the physical condition of all pavements in the roads used by Transmilenio became a very strong public issue:  the matter became one of public faith and scandal. People did not  understand why this happened. If it happened on one road, OK, but it happened on the four that were rebuilt.  Three because of the relleno fluido and the fourth because of some deficiencies in the quality of the asphalt used in one of the roads built. Legal structure of the contracts and ambiguity is assignment of risks and obligations were also present in the cracked pavements.

	So I realized that there was a very strong problem in the procedures-the way that we administered these public resources-and that we needed to put new ones in place. Since I have this background in the private sector, I was very naïve when I joined the public sector. I am somebody with a strong personality and I had the luck to grow up in a family where the concepts of education and technology and science were important. 

	I thought that I had to turn to a strategy and that made sure we had, first, a diagnosis of what was going on. OK, let us think of a way in which we can build this infrastructure, but make sure that we have very good, excellent technologies. We are not going to learn with this existing process. If we want to learn, we must have a lab, a scientific institution. We will do some trials and then have a technical norm. When everything is approved, we use it. But we are not going to get innovation here [without such a change]. 

	Secondly, we now do design. We complete the designs,  to a complete phase. In Colombia we call such stage," phase three designs". After we do that, we definitely shift the risk of construction to the contractor. Since you're having somebody designing and somebody constructing, usually you face the problem. As you can imagine something happens and the contractor says, "I'm sorry, I didn't do this design." 

	After the bitter experience and strong thought on how to structure the contracts for the next set of roads to be rebuilt for the Transmilenio system,  we put together a new set of contracts with new legal terms and conditions geared at obtaining excellent quality roads and clear responsibilities on behalf of contractors.   Initially, we introduced a contractual stage called the "pre-construction phase," in which there are four to six months before construction begins.  Once a contractor is selected through an objective selection process, during this preconstruction stage,  the construction  contractor adopts as his own, the compete designs  and drawings that were performed by a different contractor, and which were utilized by IDU  to hire the works, assuming detailed designs of all components required for the civil work, including a  final budget. . Once the contract was signed,  rather  than pushing a contractor to start  working on the construction activities, he had to  plan, organize and analyze the designs  that were submitted during te bidding process.. After four months, all designs were understood to be his, meaning that he better make sure that he identified the things that  he did not agree with; otherwise, he would became responsible for any failure or defect of the designs performed by the other design contractor. We told all construction contractors at that time:  "If you think there are deficiencies in the designs you will use for rebuilding this road,  you better bring them up, because this is going to be your design.. There is a specific, very strong clause in the contract saying this is your design. If you sign this contract, you hereby understand clearly that this is your design and that there is no way whatsoever that you can get out of that." After the preconstruction phase, w we have construction.   Finally, with the same contractor, and after construction concluded the maintenance phase took place, with the same contractor. Maintenance activities are a  normal practice in developed countries. But maintenance policies are very rare in developing countries. There is no way whatsoever that somebody will spend one peso on maintenance, because they don't get credit for that. So we mandated five years of maintenance by the same contractor. Legally that means that not only does the contractor assume responsibility for the design and building of the road, he must also stay with it for five years. If something happens, rather that dealing with the fine print of an insurance company policy, the contractor who built the road responds during the maintenance phase. t. 

	There is a very strong tool that we have in Colombia. I don't know how to translate it, but it provides for termination of a contract by unilateral decision of the administration if a contractor breaches his obligations in such a way that he cannot continue.  (Caducidad). So we tell the contractor during the maintenance time, "If something happens and it shows that you did a bad job, I will declare this kind of administrative termination." This means that he cannot work with the state, with the government, for the next five years. He faces strong fines and he's thrown to hell, more or less. 

	The result is that we now have a roads for the Transmilenio system that  work fine; with no structural  problems, no litigation, no cracks. It's as simple as shifting the risk. 

	The last  innovative thing that we did was financial. In order to finance the construction of the Transmilenio roads (phase II during our term 2001-2003), and facing the circumstance of not having the required funds at  hand, we used future incomes of fuel surcharge, as guarantee of future payments to bank- contractor,  who would find the financial resources to build the roads in the present , through the signing of a concession contract. 
	 

	The  contractor would go to a bank, request a loan and get the required resources to perform the construction works.  The local government guaranteed payment to the bank  with future income from the fuel surcharge taxes  which were  assigned exclusively  for payment of  the obligations in the Concession contract.  This governmental guarantee is considered sovereign debt, ranked at very low risk On the other hand, banks conduct a very strong study [of the borrower] and require an equity share.  This circumstance added an additional control and supervision over the contractor by the bank.  Also, by contributing with equity, a requirement of financial institutions to lend money, we had the contractor being a partner of the project with own resources invested in the works. 

	In conclusion:  . From one side, you have a contract that clearly allocated risks, specially design, construction and maintenance. . Secondly, through financing, we achieved four  goals. One: we could build the required roads without having all resources in hand, Second, we had an individual going to the bank and the bank helping the governmental institution in in controlling  and selecting  that individual, because again, banks don't lend money to whomever. Thirdly, all banks, in order to lend you money, require equity, which means that the contractor becomes  partner in the project, because his money is in there as well..  Finally, the insurance company that insures the whole project has some more solid risk analysis so, in the end, we have lower premiums. We ended up being very proud of this. 

	The construction of the Transmilenio roads also contributes to the strengthening of the relations between local and national governments.   The national government provides a maximum of 70% of the total project cost  Coordination, supervision and accountability from the local government to the national government for the destination of resources result in great stories and experiences.

	On the other hand, development of these BRTs,  also contributes to the development of institutionalism.   In Bogotá, there are two independent and astrong entities involved: Transmilenio S.A,the entity that operates the buses, and IDU, as explained above,   the institution that builds the infrastructure. Each entity with independent roles allows specialization and concentration in these two important tasks: construction of the infrastructure and design and operation of the fleet. Unfortunately, Bogotá is the only city of Colombia that has these two institutions-one concentrated on transport engineering and in the operation of the system, and the other doing the infrastructure. In other cities,  the infrastructure and the operation are subject to the same  single entity. Since Infrastructure is so important and notorious for political recognition, the merge of these two activities in one entity has resulted in more attention to the building of infrastructure in comparison to the time and sound planning of the operation of buses which in the end has a negative impact in the technical quality of the operation.


	And final and to  conclude this topic is worth mentioning another important player in the development of the BRTs in Colombia: . The World Bank  and the IDB  that lends money to the national government to finance these projects. These institutions usually  require the use of certain contract forms when lending money. However, some clauses of such forms do not comply or conform with our legal standards and realities. There are a lot of things that do not work. For example, they do not conceive the preconstruction phase as the contracts used for phase two did. In the World Bank formats, the contractor has to review designs before starting construction phase, but such designs must be in the end of the process approved by the public entity, in our case IDU shifting back to the institution the design risk.  In the formats that we developed at IDU, there is no approval by IDU, meaning that all design associated risks remain in the head of the contractor. 
	
	So, you know, there are  lots of things you end up discussing with multilaterals. . It's the way you relate to them being a developing country. They shouldn't come here to tell us how to do things without taking into consideration our needs and realities.  In any case, in Bogotá, we manage to explain our arguments, and after strong confrontation we finally obtained a waiver from the Bank allowing the use of the contract  forms developed by IDU and used for phase two during their signature between 2001 and 2003.  We did not use for this phase their formats.

	 
DEVLIN: 	So these reforms that you put into the contracting process-say the concession idea, the five years of maintenance, the pre-planning phase, where did you get the idea to incorporate those from? Were there precedents here in Bogotá already? In other areas? Or did you have staff that was suggesting these ideas? Was it something that you were familiar with yourself?

PATINO:	First of all, as I told you, my two grandfathers are doctors. My father is a doctor, my sister is a doctor, my mother was a bacteriologist. I was trained in a house where you have to diagnose everything before you speak. So you have to learn what's on the table, and then you can talk. I think what happened in phase one (The incitial construction of the Transmilenio roads the during Peñalosa tenuere in Bogotá) was very constructive, because when we had to face and solve the legal and technical  problems arising out the failures in the pavement structures of the four roads built,  by trying to understand whose responsibility it was, it was not rocket science. I realized that things happened because we didn't have a design as well as an adequate risk allocation scheme between contractor and contracting entity- I also had a very good law firm supporting these new activities. I hired somebody who was very good at these contracts, and we had very long discussions. Conflict resolution was another important innovative element in these new contracts.. Instead of going to judges for conflict resolution of certain issues. ee thought that universities were perfect to solve problems because if a university gets involved in a problem between the government and a contractor, the university doesn't have any profit interest. Secondly, we have universities that are experienced with technical people oriented to developing  good engineering practices. Thirdly, a university will learn about real life, because by resolving these problems it will be involved with the problem. 

	It ended up being a little bit bureaucratic with a lot of jealousy. Amazing. If I went  to one university, the other would say, "Why did you go to that university?" So it became a problem. There's a lot of jealousy in the academic community-a little bit of ego. So that was something we tried to develop but it didn't work that well. So we ended up in small arbitrations to solve problems.

DEVLIN: 	Once you had come up with this new model for contracting, was it enshrined in the way the city would do infrastructure contracts in the future? Was this something that was set as the norm now and then from there on out?

PATINO:	It is the norm now, not only in Bogotá, but is the norm now in many other cities.

DEVLIN: 	Was that legally set? Was there a law passed?

PATINO:	No.

DEVLIN: 	It's just a way that the city operates.

PATINO:	Yes.

DEVLIN: 	Does that extend beyond infrastructure in other contracting processes?

PATINO:	No, as far as I know. 

	When you have Antanas Mockus as Mayor  the reasoning for decision making and policy planning is based on technical standards and efficient use of resources.  That is not the case with common politicians.

	President (Álvaro) Uribe was a candidate at the time when planning of construction of phase two for the Transmilenio roads system started. During his campaign, he announced that he was going to support Transmilenio. He then became president.  However, when we proposed the Concession contract with the structure that I explained above, requesting the support of the national government in a percentage close to 70% of total cost,  his minister of finance rejected the request to contribute with future income and decide not to recognize an agreement signed back in the 90s, between the national government and the city of Bogotá. They argued that the Concession scheme was not "legal" and that they were not going to co finance the project.  We did not accept their position, and based in the contents of the agreement signed, and sound legal arguments demonstrating that the Concession scheme was legal ad viable, brought  the conflict before the Advisory committee of the State Council (Judicial Branch) who decided in favor of the city of Bogata, resulting in the national government contributing with future incomes for the construction of phase two. 

	The other thing that we learned from all this is that the national government must fulfill its obligations to the cities. There are six other cities doing these BRTs, we share our experience, especially with the waiver obtained from the World Bank and the fulfillment of financial compromises from the national government.

	
DEVLIN: 	So we talked about the technical issues, the legal issues, and the national and political issues. How about the local political issues? As you said everyone loves infrastructure. Contracts are worth a lot of money. City councilmen usually love infrastructure. How did all that factor in to what you were trying to do?

PATINO:	Well, let's go to issue number two: the City Council. Besides the huge Transmilenio system, which is like the main thing here, something that is very important and related to the local neighborhoods are the local roads, which are an absolute, complete disaster for many reasons. The condition is amazingly bad. I would say that almost 50% of the network roads are local roads. Out of those I would say 70% are in bad shape, from a technical point of view. We have very few resources, and you need to decide where to apply the scarce resources.  One peso invested in a massive transportation systems versus one peso invested in a neighborhood to fix a local road used mainly by private owned cars. A bus carrying 160 passengers versus a car with one driver.

	However, one  way the local city council, gets its votes is by promising repair of the destroyed local roads.  You need more resources and you also need to develop very transparent mechanisms of allocating such scarce resources. In other words: people need to understand why resources  that are the result of taxes, do not come to them, why their streets continue to be un repaired even though they paid taxes; they ask themselves  where are those resources going?  So in order to confront this difficult situation related to local streets in very bad shape we  promoted in the National Congress an increase in the fuel surcharge from 20% to 25%. Five percentage points was a 25% increase.  That was a titanic job but we finally accomplished it.	In addition to seeking increase of the fuel surcharge, we proposed to the city council a valorization  contribution for building new main roads. 
PATINO:	Valorization contributions are traditional schemes to have many people pitching in for the construction of a pubic work.  In Bogotá, the valorization contributions must be previously approved by the City Council before you can charge  (invoice) it to the citizens. The allocation of the contribution which responds to the final construction costs usually incorporates cost of land, designs, construction and maintenance. The per capita/ per premise  distribution of contribution  depends on  level of benefit of the public work, which is usually related to proximity and location and characteristics of the premise (Strata, number of floors, use). We proposed the  valorization contribution  so that the whole city would be paying  for the road needs in these neighborhoods with low incomes. 
	We presented this to the council on five occasions before we obtained their approval. I was super, super naïve, amazingly naïve, sincerely naïve in the way I developed my first interactions with the City Council.  To present the initiative  we prepared a power point presentation, very technical, explaining the benefits of the project. We had the police lend us a helicopter and we took pictures and developed indicators of connectivity. " I insisted to the Council that if  you do this road, and you just do this little piece, and you openthis sector you improve connectivity". 
	Well, to the city council I was the technical person. However, politics and technical strategies do not get along very well.  At the beginning the majority would not pay attention to the presentation You see all kinds of people doing strange things in this auditorium, and you put together your computer, and you turn on the presentation, and you start to talk and nobody listens to you. Not one single person. They walk around. They eat. They have lunch. They call friends. They chat. So you don't know what to do. You take the microphone and say, "Please excuse me, I apologize, but I need to make this presentation." 

	Finally, somebody came and tapped me on my shoulder and said, "Come on, come on, my friend. This is not the way you do things here. We need to survive politically and therefore in order to approve your initiative we need to trade jobs or contracts.  Otherwise we will reject and you will not be able to get your project approved.  Not all city Council members think that way, but usually local politics operate as such.

	Well, finally, after months of conversations, arguments, and not accepting trading jobs or contracts at IDU in turn of approval the initiative,  we developed a good working relationship with some members of the Council who finally supported the initiative that was finally approved.  Thanks to that valorization contributions, nearly 17 new roads were built in Bogotá.  The message here is  not to discourage yourself when you have to face politicians that are not scrupulous. One has to maintain a firm position and persist and insist in getting through the message of the benefit to the community  of a given project, seeking support from different forces such as the media and straight politicians, that may be few, but still exist.


 
	 Antanas said to me, "Maria we are wasting time here. We have to dedicate our time to something else. Let's stop. Show the city that these people do not want to vote something that is very important." I said no. 



	We got the valorization approved. At the time it was about 17 million dollars, which is not that much, but we got it approved in December without any trades of jobs and contracts. The other thing is that we sent out the invoices and we started to get people at the places that we had designated for payment. You would see lines and lines and lines of people. So one day I went down and I said, "There must be a mistake. Maybe these people think that we're paying them, because this is not possible."  I had to extend the campaign, designate special hours, extend schedules so that people could go and pay. We had a very, very high collection rate-like nearly 80% in the three months after the invoices were sent out. 

	
	As time passed by, my relationship with the City Council improved. We then had clear rules o f the game. As  Antanas Mockus always say:  "You are not born a citizen. You become a citizen if you are treated as a citizen. 
	After all strong efforts to increase income, (fuel surcharge and valorization), we decided that we were going to design a methodology to allocate the few resources for repair of street roads, based on technical grounds. So first, we decided that we were going to do roads near hospitals and schools. Number two: we were going to allocate according to necessity. In other words, whether or not you had a certain type of situation-say, a public health situation. For example, during the rainy season a road is horrible for children to cross and they get this mud on their feet and mud is very, very infectious. 

	We did that. The neighborhoods had to file a form and participate. We had nearly 400 hundred neighborhoods participating.  The idea was to classify their needs and show them where the resources would go, attending criteria related to proximity to schools and hospitals and massive transportation corridors. We hired a theater and invited all the participants to show them the results of the prioritization exercise.  Out of, I don't know, 400 neighborhoods, we were going to allocate resources only to ten. 

	So everybody went into the theater very enthusiastic, very nice and very happy with us, because we were going to allocate the money for the neighborhoods. But we only had money for ten-so that meant 390 neighborhoods [were not going to get something]. We had screens and computers so that we could explain the process: "This is the way you filled out the forms to support this neighborhood. Very well, you did this very well. In this box you put this, this, and this." So they looked at that. "Then this is the way you introduce the form." They looked at that. 

	Now we pushed "enter", and they saw the Excel tables sorting the information contained in the forms and prioritization the neighborhoods  meeting the established criteria. "The system will now show us the priorities resulting in only ten neighborhoods to benefit from the funds we have available for this year", we said. 

	When the sorting concluded and the ten winning neighborhoods were listed, all remaining 390 became really upset.  Even though we tried to explain to them that it was very important for them to understand the process and verify directly where the resources were going to be applied, they did not like the story. Is seems as if they did not care about the procedures; they only cared about the results and they were not getting anything!!  The situation turned tense  "This is a joke, they said. Who do you think we are?"  They were upset and frustrated, as well as I.  I said, "I don't understand. This is the first time in your lives that somebody is giving you counts on this. What are you talking about? This is the first time you are explained in the methodology used by public servants to allocate scarce resources and you get upset?".  So in the end, by 8 p.m. after  screaming and shouting, we revisit the procedures, went through arguments and explanations, and got an agreement on the way resources were allocated.

	. 

	Well the ten neighborhoods that were initially selected  decided to give back 50% of the assigned funds to be redistributed among other neighborhoods and we asked cement companies and people to contribute materials so that we could spread resources a little bit. 
DEVLIN: 	So on that point of communicating with the people, what about taxes more broadly, the idea, in the Mockus administration, the idea that you were building a culture of taxpayers to some degree? (Please review this question. It does not seem clear)

PATINO:	Tax payment culture was very important at his administration.  There was an important increase in tax payment rates. But more important was the voluntary payment of taxes. 

110% with Bogotá. In early 2002, the City Administration launched a campaign for the voluntary payment of taxes. A voluntary contribution of 10% was suggested in addition to the regular tax statement (Industry and Commerce and Property taxes). That year, over 63,000 citizens decided to make that additional payment and the city was thus able to collect an additional COP$1.177 million. This is equivalent, for example, to the cost of educating for a year almost one thousand youths. 	 

DEVLIN: 	So at a couple of points you mentioned that you had some really good staff to help you with this on different issues. Where did you find these people? Were they already in the Institute? Did you go out and look for people? 

PATINO:	Both.

DEVLIN: 	Did you bring them in?

PATINO:	At IDU you have all these altruistic, dedicated people, super nice people. They don't care about their salaries, or their work conditions, and they work many hours. I had to do it as well. I mean if you want to move people you have to do it yourself as well. You don't leave by five and say, "Bye guys. See you tomorrow." No you have to do it with them. You have to get involved in the details. I don't believe that managers should just deal with the big issues. Managers should get into the details and understand exactly what is going on. 

	I am a lawyer, IDU is full of engineers. So what is this lawyer doing here? I had to learn. I like engineering very much. It is a very interesting career. So you have to learn. And when you learn from your people, they have the pleasure of teaching you, like "Guys, I don't understand this drawing. I don't know what is right, what is left." When they placed a drawing in front of me, at the beginning it did not  represent anything to me. So they teach, they show me. I have to listen. We used to say that lawyers and engineers should marry because it is a great  combination. So we promoted that. I think it worked.

	But I also was very strict. I was sometimes impatient. I changed people, and I judged people very quickly. I'm very bad in recruiting because I am very emotive. So five minutes after somebody answers three good questions, I think, "Listen, you are the person, you are perfect, you are the guy and I don't care." Interviews and recruiting, you never know. It is like marriage, you never know.  But then you make mistakes and you get dispointed by those people you thought were perfect for the job.  I learnt many good things at IDU and with Antanas.   

DEVLIN: 	You said after all this, in the presidential bid, you traveled a lot and you learned a lot in this travel. So I'm wondering when you-at that point and since then, what lessons from your experience here in Bogotá are exportable elsewhere, things that were done well or things that maybe should be done differently in other places? 

PATINO:	The thing is that Bogotá has more financial resources in comparison to other cities in the country. Also the  city is very empowered. In other words, the national government doesn't come in and tell us what to do. The other cities depend too much on the national government's finances. So they tend to be more timid. We have been promoting our practices. I left six years ago, and I'm still visiting  other cities telling stories boaut BRTs, the World Bank and other experiences: sharing mistakes and good practices. 
	We have finally shown that the technical approach is good; that you can stand up and say things to multilateral agencies and it works. Empowerment means telling people to speak up, don't just go with the flow. 

DEVLIN: 	I guess the last question is a little unfair, but what would you have done differently if you'd do it again? What didn't go quite so perfectly? 

PATINO:	I was too anxious to turn things around. I was very impatient. If I were to do it again today, I think that I would be calmer, more reflective, less anxious. I was very stressed, super stressed. Because in the end, I had a lot of lawsuits-I handled 200 lawsuits. They embargoed my account one time. I think that I lacked tact in dealing with people, confronted too much and may be gained some enemies. I think that I was sometimes too strong. I put a lot of pressure on people. We could have done it without that much pressure, unnecessary pressure.

	I don't know if I caused harm to the personality of some people because I was very strong. I was very strict. I didn't want to smile every day in the elevator. The book says that you have to smile every day. Because I thought, if I give five smiles, I am wasting time and I need the time to produce and produce and produce results and I have to attend these people and you have the media and the city Council members, nd you have 3,500 contracts that you administrate and everything goes wrong. 

DEVLIN: 	It does sound like quite a challenge, though.

PATINO:	The last thing that I think I didn't do well was the way in which we allocated the resources to the neighborhoods. That was a mistake, because even though it was very well intentioned it was not very intelligent. First of all, Excel tables. You can imagine these people sitting there saying, "What is this?" Think about it. I don't think that we did it well; we shouldn't have done it that way. We should have gone to every neighborhood. We should have met in small groups. We should have taken more time to explain. 

	We couldn't deal with this gap of knowledge and technology, and just because we had the need to show that we were transparent, we submitted these people to  a lot of frustration. That was not a good idea. Very well intentioned. You can do that in New Haven but not here.   

DEVLIN: 	So perhaps make the decision and just let the decision be known rather than involve them in the mechanics of it?

PATINO:	Exactly, or show them more locally, be more patient, spend more time, and go neighborhood by neighborhood, with staff. Nobody requests you to do it. You cannot be that technical, you cannot permit the aim of being transparent drive you crazy and that happened here.   

DEVLIN: 	Well, thank you so much for a fascinating and very clear conversation.

PATINO:	OK, my pleasure.

Innovations for Successful Societies				Series: Governance Traps	
Oral History Program						Interview number: J-33
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