The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, announced the resumption of a series of social services and programs in the southern region of Puno, the most affected by the social protests that broke out last December and which suffers from one of the highest levels of poverty in the country.
In a press conference offered at the Government Palace, Boluarte said that despite having assumed office as “the first woman president of the republic in the middle of a crisis,” she assured the citizens of this South Andean region that “this government He does listen to them, he does know what he has to do in Puno”.
In this sense, Boluarte promised to “promote growth, development, and progress in that region so that it is not left behind, so that it does not continue to be the poorest in the country.”
According to official figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) cited by Boluarte, Puno is among the six poorest regions in the country, as a result of which 79% of its population suffers from anemia and 42% of their homes do not have drinking water and sewage services.
“These figures cause outrage, pain, impotence, and sadness, it is not fair that this continues to happen in Puno, but also in other regions,” the president noted.
For this reason, Boluarte announced that in order to meet the “most urgent needs” of Puno, next week he will send a humanitarian convoy to continue public services, such as the storage of drinking water, the start of the school year with the shipment of 94 tons of educational and sports material.
Likewise, the governor explained that this month 800 irrigation canal maintenance activities will be carried out for the benefit of 600 families dedicated to artisanal agriculture.
Similarly, the Executive will allocate 619 million soles (US$162 million) to improve 1,312 kilometers of roads and bridges and 220 million soles (US$57 million) to build houses with air conditioning to protect residents from frost.
In the same way, Boluarte announced the transfer of 9 million soles (US$2 million) to reactivate tourism companies and 5 million soles (US$1.3 million) as a subsidy for artisans, two of the activities hardest hit since the pandemic. .
The president insisted that these social needs must be discussed in the protests, which continue in the streets asking for her resignation, because they respond to the accumulated years in which successive governments “have not efficiently executed public resources.” .
“I tell our brothers in Puno that the development of their region is in their hands, take care of the right to work and to mobilize freely. The only thing that violence generates is sadness and underdevelopment. The sole purpose of the Government is to serve them,” he said.
For her part, Foreign Minister Ana Cecilia Gervasi reported that, as a result of the blockades on the Puno-Bolivia border, the coordination between the official organizations of both countries has managed to allow 240 transport units that were stranded in Peru to return to Bolivia. and a similar number of Peruvian cargo vehicles can return to the country.
“These operations will continue intensively in the coming days,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Puno is currently one of the main regions in which the protest measures that demand the resignation of Boluarte, the advancement of the general elections and the call for a constituent assembly are maintained, and a group of citizens from this region mobilizes to Lima to march and insist that their demands be met.