Economy Minister: “It’s not true that the central government has no resources or support” for Piura

He Minister of EconomyAlex Contreras, this Sunday refuted allegations by regional and local authorities who, from Piura, accused the government of not providing enough support to this area of ​​the country, most affected in recent days by river floods, floods and landslides as a result of intense rainy that autumn in northern Peru.

“It is not true […] we gave full support to regional and local authorities and called on them to execute the budget,” he said in News extension from PTR in response to complaints about the lack of support and coordination between the Piura executive and local authorities in the face of the current emergency.

Contreras attributed the lack of response to the climate emergency to the lack of capacity for local and regional governments to meet spending earmarked for these contingencies.

In this regard, he pointed out that in the first quarter of the year, the regional government of the city of piura it spent less than 10% of the budget on emergencies, and all of the department’s local governments combined accounted for only 17% of the expenditures executed.

“They did not even use all the resources to provide emergency assistance. […] so it is not true that there are not enough resources and that there is no support from the central government, on the contrary, there was an unprecedented deployment of ministers in the area, to the point that when the governor of the area asked that an emergency be declared piura And we did it,” he said.

“Rather, there was not enough potential; most of them are local governments with little experience, we were able to see that and so we send our teams to train them, they don’t know how to spend; little by little they learn,” he added.

Piura’s budget has not been cut, minister says

contraras He also denied that the budget earmarked for the executive branch in Piura had been cut due to the emergency due to rains, the mayor of the Piura province, Gabriel Madrid, said after President Dina Boluarte announced that 500 million soles would be allocated. allocated to the region, while about 850 million were previously announced.

The Minister explained that these are two different subjects; firstly, the budget already assigned to the regional and local authorities is 850 million soles; and two more, 500 million, which are part of the “Con Punche Perú” bill.

“Then there is an inaccuracy on the part of the mayor, this is not true, it seems that he did not understand the message yesterday. We are going to agree to support him more in the management issue, I understand that he is a new authority,” he said.

Contreras indicated that last week he received the mayor of Madrid for IEF and they talked about the Piura boardwalk project and support for heavy machinery, a statement that contrasts with that of the burgomaster RPP news about allegedly non-existent agreement with the executive branch.

In addition, the minister expressed surprise at the intention of the local authorities to piura hold a regional strike to protest against the government over the perceived lack of support. “I have never seen them go on strike in an emergency, when what the population needs, citizenship, is action.”

Although he acknowledged problems in communicating with local authorities, Contreras said that in a “difficult crisis” like the one the country is experiencing due to rains, “there remains to be coordinated and formulated”, and in the case of piura He assured that the Government is not going to save on the allocation of funds needed to help the “region” in this difficult situation.