On Monday, the Executive announced the measures they agreed to intervene in the Barrio Meiggs sector in the face of the constant security problems associated with informal itinerant commerce that appropriated public spaces in that area.
The governor of the Metropolitan region, Claudio Orrego, was not invited to the event, so he openly showed his annoyance. Two days later, Orrego met in La Moneda with the President of the Republic, Gabriel Boric.
After the meeting, the authority stated that the President gave his “full support” for the Alameda-Providencia axis project, carried out during the second administration of Michelle Bachelet and discarded by Sebastián Piñera in 2019.
“This is a project that means intervening about 14 kilometers of the main avenue of our city and also of the country, which is in a serious state of deterioration, urban road and landscape. And consequently, we have decided to renew this project that means replacing sidewalks, clean facades, renovate monuments,” he said.
“The President has committed his support to this project that we hope will help change and improve the face of Santiago,” he added.
Given the decision to intervene in this sector, the situation of irregular commerce was also addressed, specifically in Barrio Meiggs after the constant acts of violence. “This is an issue that is overwhelmed in Santiago and that requires everyone’s collaboration,” said Orrego.
In this sense, the authority emphasized that it is necessary to “recover public spaces, combat the mafias of itinerant commerce and, most importantly, also support established commerce.”
“The President pointed out that next week he will tell us how he wants us as a Regional Government to participate in this effort that goes far beyond Meiggs, which also includes what is happening in the Metro and in other places in the country,” he said. .
“We have been working hard on the issue of itinerant commerce, we had an intersectoral work table with more than 37 institutions for four months, we delivered our proposals to the central government and the first reaction was what happened this week with the Meiggs neighborhood” , he detailed.
“We have told the President and he agrees that the problem of itinerant commerce does not end in the Meiggs neighborhood,” he concluded.
