A substantive controversy broke out Tuesday between President Gustavo Petro and the Ministry of Social Integration of Bogotá, Roberto Angulo, after the head of state affirmed that the accelerated reduction of poverty in the capital is due to the actions of the National Government and In a very fast response, from the Lievano Palace they would tell you that this is not so.
From the district they unchecked from that statement and defended that the merit of the advances In terms of extreme poverty reduction corresponds to local factors and not to the national policy that, among other things, eliminated several subsidies that the nation delivered to the Bogota for years.
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This debate was opened after during a public pronouncement, Petro said that Bogotá is “the city where poverty decreases more quickly,” and added that, although the mayor is “very proud”, this improvement occurs “thanks to the national government, which he does not thank me.”
According to the president, this phenomenon is explained by the high proportion of wage population in the city, which, upon receiving better income, increases consumption in neighborhood stores and dynamizes the informal economy; since from your perspective, drag with it to the most impoverished layers of the population, even those who live in extreme poverty.
Extreme monetary and monetary poverty fell in 2024.
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Petro also argued that this dynamic is also replicated in areas where modern agriculture has grown, such as Villavicencio, Tolima and Huila, although he regretted that in these territories the departmental governments are opponents. In contrast, he criticized that the Caribbean region still does not improve its poverty indicators for the persistence of “unproductive landowners.”
Bogotá was direct
The president’s claims were immediately answered by Roberto AnguloSecretary of Social Integration of Bogotá, who publicly expressed his disagreement and questioned that the National Government intends to attribute the merit of advances in cities; taking into account the aid that delivers the city.
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“Difficult that the national government attributes the entire growth of cities, when it depends not only on the macroeconomic context but on the agglomeration economies that are enabled and enhanced with a local productive agenda and urban public goods,” he said.
Angulo explained that the factors that explain the fall in poverty in Bogotá respond to a local development strategy, which includes investment attraction, sector incentives, land use planning, mobility and other decisions
Monetary poverty data in Colombia reached its lowest point since you have registration.
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But beyond the political arguments, Angulo supported his statements with figures from the DANE, which show a different behavior between Bogotá and the national average and in terms of the redistributive effect of income, he said that while at national level this effect increased extreme poverty by 0.35 percentage points, in Bogotá it managed to reduce it by 0.99 percentage points.
“While the redistributive effect in Bogotá took a percentage point of the population From extreme poverty, in the national total it launched 0.35 percentage points of the population to this situation, ”he emphasized and stressed that, in his opinion, he shows that Bogotá has opened effective redistributive channels, while at national level those channels have weakened to the point of becoming barriers for the poorest.
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The official concluded his response with a direct criticism of the government in which he pointed out that “he is not working enough for the poorest among the poor and that is not a speculative or hypothetical statement, it is what the Dane numbers say.”
Finally, Angulo questioned the presidential narrative and said that “no one raised the flags of equity in their own right and equal opportunities are not achieved with messianic speeches, but with discipline, inclusive growth strategies and efficient execution of social spending ”.
Daniel Hernández Naranjo
Portfolio journalist
