The administration of the elected president, Gustavo Petro, begins to take shape little by little, and there are already six names defined to head part of his cabinet starting next August 7when the new government starts.
(Petro cabinet composition, key to investor confidence).
To last week’s appointments of the conservative Álvaro Leyva as chancellorand the economist José Antonio Ocampo as Minister of Finance, Petro added in the last 48 hours four women who will be in charge of the portfolios of Culture, Agriculture, Health and Environment.
This Monday he appointed the poet and artist Patricia Ariza as the new Minister of Culture. The Santanderean, who has also dedicated part of her life to political activism, is president of the Colombian Theater Corporation and in the 1960s she founded the Teatro La Candelaria.
(Patricia Ariza will be the Minister of Culture of the Petro government).
Yesterday, on the other hand, Petro said on his Twitter account: “Antioquia doctor Carolina Corcho will be Minister of Health; the current councilor of Bogotá, a native of Barranquilla, Susana Muhamad, will be Minister of the Environment and the Barranquilla economist Cecilia López Montaño will be Minister of Agriculture”.
The cabinet that Petro has begun to form is characterized by experienced profiles with extensive experience.
López is an economist and was already Minister of Agriculture and Environment, as well as Director of National Planning during the government of Ernesto Samper (1994-1996) and Senator of the Republic for the period 2006-2010.
Corcho was vice president of the Colombian Medical Federation, and president of the National Association of Interns and Residents (Anir), as well as director of Social Participation in the Bogotá Health Secretariat between 2014 and 2016, in the Petro mayor’s office.
While Muhamad is a political scientist and environmentalist, she was Secretary of the Environment and Secretary General in the mayor’s office of Gustavo Petro and also a councilor of Bogotá since 2020.
Likewise, Leyva is a lawyer, and was minister of mines between 1984-1985, he was also a congressman between 1978 and 1984. In addition, he has been a peace mediator and one of the architects of the Special Justice for Peace (JEP).
The designated foreign minister has already begun meetings with figures such as the US ambassador, Francisco L. Palmieri, the European Union ambassador to Colombia, Gilles Bertrand, and the Chilean ambassador to Colombia, Ricardo Hernández.
Ocampo is a recognized economist at national and international level. He was Minister of Agriculture under César Gaviria (1990-1994), Minister of Finance and director of the National Planning Department under Ernesto Samper (1994-1998); and he was also co-director of the Banco de la República between 2017 and 2019, when he retired to dedicate himself as a professor at Columbia University (New York), among multiple positions.
In recent days, Ocampo has declared before public opinion that his key will be to achieve approval of the ambitious tax reform sought by the president-elect, of around 5 points of GDP ($55 billion), and has also spoken of eliminating the days without VAT.
THE SPLICE
Yesterday ended the stage of sectoral meetings, which had been taking place for 23 sectors. behind them The meetings for 190 entities will continue, and it is expected that on July 20 the incoming government will have a preliminary report on the meetings.
Yesterday the Presidency, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) and the Department of Social Prosperity (DPS) met.
The director of Dane, Juan Daniel Oviedo, highlighted critical elements for the next administration, such as continuity in the process of approval and issuance of the Official Statistics Law or the economic census. “We were able to define some critical elements of the information exchange process to guarantee a very fluid transition of all the issues that correspond to the statistical information sector,” said Oviedo.
LAURA LUCIA BECERRA ELEJALDE
BRIEFCASE
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