Cuenca City Hall Shake-Up Reaches ETAPA And EMOV

Cuenca’s municipal reshuffle has now reached two agencies residents actually feel in daily life: ETAPA and EMOV.

Acting mayor Marisol Peñaloza asked senior municipal managers, coordinators, and directors to place their positions under review on July 3. Ten days later, the departures of María Verónica Polo from ETAPA and Lenin Guzmán from EMOV were officially known.

ETAPA handles municipal telecommunications, potable water, sewerage, and sanitation. EMOV handles mobility, traffic, and transport. In other words, this is not just City Hall rearranging chairs. These are agencies that touch your water bill, road flow, traffic enforcement, and local mobility headaches.

Who Is Out

Polo had led ETAPA since May 2023, when Cristian Zamora took office as mayor. Guzmán had led EMOV since December 2024, after the resignation of Darío Ordóñez.

Peñaloza became acting mayor on June 17 after a six-month suspension of the political rights of Mayor Cristian Zamora.

The leadership review also affected EMAC, where María Caridad Vázquez submitted an irrevocable resignation and Juan Fernando Vicuña Pozo was named acting general manager.

What To Watch

As of the report, the municipality had not yet said who would take over ETAPA and EMOV. For residents, those appointments are worth watching more than the politics around them. The practical question is whether service priorities change at agencies tied to water, telecom, street mobility, and traffic management.