The National Planning Department (DNP) is strategic. Through this the Development Plan is formulated, the investment budget is managed and the planning of the sectors is coordinated and supported. To direct this entity, Gustavo Petro appointed César Ferrari, a civil engineer with a master’s degree in regional and urban planning from the University of New York and a Phd in Economics from the University of Boston. The official spoke with Portafolio about the path that he will seek to give the DNP and the challenges that he sees in the process.
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What are the main challenges you will take on as head of the entity?
There are two important things: changing the productive structure of the country, and changing the structure of consumption, which is not easy, simple, or fast. But if Colombia does not assume that, the fundamental problems will never be solved.
The model we have does not generate enough jobs, that is why there are such high levels of unemployment and informality, but also, as it is based on hydrocarbon sectors, and a transition in the energy matrix is progressing worldwide, these have no future, and they will run out of demand. If Colombia does not begin to change, it will simply have a gigantic balance of payments problem in the future.
The Government talks about strengthening the DNP, what is your strategy?
In recent years, the DNP has ended up involved in distributing royalties right and left, and has forgotten its fundamental mission: to think about where the country is going, how it is going, what its restrictions and potentialities are.
Cesar Ferrari
There are many situations to think about with time, it is not done from one day to the next and the market does not solve them, because it always thinks in the short term. That is why it is important to plan and the President is very clear about it and he told me: we must recover the capacity of the DNP to plan. It is the fundamental work that I have.
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What’s next for the Development Plan?
You have to be very clear about the fundamental lines, which is that change in structure and the new energy matrix, those are the big things, and even the insertion of Colombia in a changing technological and geopolitical context. That is the first step, to be very clear about the paradigm that guides us, it is time for solidarity, and the President said it in his inaugural speech, it is time to think about the need for us all to be saved or no one is saved. Strategies and public policies derive from this paradigm.
In the junction there was talk of reviewing the royalty management model, what should change?
It is something very important, I still have to study the subject well, but the royalty money has been lost in what seems to be a situation of more or less significant corruption. I am not affirming it, but in any case, there is some research on this that will have to continue its course. We must think of larger projects, linking several municipalities, and not a multitude of small projects.
What management will be done from Planning in front of social programs?
There is a quote from Pope Francis that says that ‘subsidies may be necessary, they may be urgent, but they are not a substitute for work’. For that, it is necessary to generate a new productivity structure capable of generating full employment in the country. When we achieve this situation, which of course will not be overnight, the subsidies will have to disappear. We cannot have 70% of the vulnerable population living on subsidies, the idea is that each one has a job.
The DNP has made progress in Sisbén IV to make the allocation of subsidies more efficient, what path would you take then?
The Sisbén is something that can always be improved a little more, it can be focused, eliminate the leakers, make a much stricter purification, but I repeat, the problem is to generate full employment. Instead of worrying about the famous Sisbén, we should worry about the labor market, and what public policies are needed.
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Where should the multipurpose cadastre go?
It is something that was established as urgent and necessary in the Havana Peace Accords. To achieve rural development we need clarity on the property situation in the countryside. We need what is paid in taxes to be related to the commercial value of the properties. We cannot have very large extensions, with a high commercial value, paying pennies. Fair taxes have to help make the land more productive.
What investment priorities does the country have?
There is a gigantic infrastructure deficit. Colombia has around 150,000 km of third level highways, rural roads, where only about 10% are in good condition. There are important longitudinal roads with a precarious infrastructure. We need to generate an important infrastructure.
LAURA LUCIA BECERRA ELEJALDE
