At first sight the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND), the national development plan unveiled by President Gustavo Petro on 6 February, could be labelled as a naïve pipe dream designed to rally Colombia’s people behind a common cause and its president. Dubbed the plan to make Colombia “a global leader of life”, it espouses lofty ideals to eliminate violence, injustice, and poverty. But the 166-page plan, with twice as many pages annexed, sets out concrete targets and establishes specific policies that put flesh on Petro’s ambitious plans for sweeping social and economic change, from credits for micro-entrepreneurs and farmers to fibre-optic cables for high-speed internet, cash transfers for the poor, and the production of green hydrogen.
“How does Colombia become rich again? Undoubtedly we have to accept the current circumstances that have inundated us with economic problems,” Petro said during the public presentation of the proposal in February. “If we combine, like in a good stew, capital, land, and knowledge, it makes for a rich society. That’s how we can reactivate the economy, and in a lasting way too.”
The PND also proposes giving Petro far-reaching powers to overhaul Colombia’s state apparatus in a year in which he hopes to implement sweeping changes to the social security system, the health system, as well as the power sector.
Overall, it reflects the campaign promises made by Petro and his Pacto Histórico by promoting, for example, increased environmental protection, agrarian reform, and more inclusion of minorities, among other objectives. While it aims to attract more private, and particularly foreign, capital, it marks a decided shift to a more statist economic model with increased government intervention and more regulation.
Legitimacy
At the same time the PND also reflects the reality check the Petro administration went through during its first six months in office. It downsizes ambitious targets he initially had to quit hydrocarbon production entirely. The plan doesn’t mention the question of whether or not to continue oil exploration, completely skirting a hot button topic that has divided Petro’s ministerial team into two camps. It does announce plans to ban open pit mining of coal deposits but grandfathers those operations that are already under way.
In its favour, the plan enjoys ample legitimacy. In a process similar to a constituent assembly or the drafting of a participatory budget, communities since mid-September had been meeting in regional assemblies called ‘diálogos regionales vinculantes’ that drafted proposals to be included in the PND.
The PND’s emphasis on fomenting the “popular economy” is a chapter out of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s cookbook and is essentially a strategy to tap into dormant productive capacity and stimulate consumer demand among the lower income sectors through cheap loans, welfare programmes, and other incentives.
In his speech at the unveiling of the PND, Petro noted that “half the Colombian population is forced to resort to incidental jobs. That’s where we think we can build an economic potential for Colombia, if we empower it.”
Article 51 of the PND creates a cash transfer system that is reminiscent of Brazil’s Bolsa Família, which deposits a monthly amount onto a type of credit card in exchange for minimum requirements such as ensuring that children attend school and medical check-ups. Exactly what such a programme might look like in Colombia isn’t yet clear.
Key objectives of the 2022-2026 national development plan
- Reduce extreme poverty from 12.2% in 2021 to 9.6% in 2026
- Deliver titles for 2.9m hectares of land.
- Build college campuses throughout the country.
- Reduce housing deficit from 31% to 26%.
- Require all adult Colombians to file an income tax statement regardless of their earnings; the database is to help shape public policies and boost revenue.
- Cut deforestation by 20%; increase recovery of degraded areas by 750,000 hectares.
- Diversify exports to reduce reliance on energy and mining.
- Install solar panels on roofs in “most sunny parts” of the country.
- Ban new large-scale open pit coal mining projects.
- Increase household internet connections from 38.3m to 71.4m.
- Use a windfall tax on oil and coal to finance sustainable energy; install 2000 MW of renewable energy for commercial use.
- Invite foreign capital to build national railway, solar farms, wind parks, green hydrogen plants.
- Adopt a nationwide ‘zero waste’ programme that would pay informal garbage collectors, reduce the use of landfills, and promote recycling and reusable packaging.
The question is Petro’s ability to implement the plan. By the time it’s voted upon by congress sometime in May, nearly a quarter of his mandate will be over. Also, his popularity ratings are falling, according to a Datexo opinion poll from February that showed approval for the way he is managing the country falling to 39%, down 9 percentage points from October.
On the other hand, Petro went further than perhaps any previous president in requesting special powers from congress to carry out his agenda. Tacked on to the very end of the PND in its third-to-last article (No 298) are a series of proposals that would give Petro executive powers to overhaul the central government. They include powers that would allow him to single-handedly annul and create state institutions or agencies and change the statutes that govern them. He could also create and fund new state companies at will.
Among the dozen-plus requests for extraordinary powers are those that would allow him to change all necessary rules to implement his re-industrialisation plan. Similarly, Petro would gain authority to wield over government investment funds, budgetary agencies, and other public resources.
One of his intentions is reportedly to merge two welfare programmes – Familias en Acción and Jóvenes en Acción – to create a single citizens’ benefit scheme, but the move might potentially also help him to carry out his social security reform.
Rule by decree?
Critics said the proposals go too far and would almost certainly be cut back by legislators when the bill makes its way through both houses of congress.
“This proposes broad restructuring by decree. It is a gigantic attribution,” said José Manuel Restrepo, finance minister for the final year of the Iván Duque government (2018-2022). “They could change or create all kinds of entities. These are issues that should be dealt with by law, not by decree.”
Article 298
Article 298 of the PND would give Petro the authority to:
- Create or annul various entities of the executive branch of government.
- Fund newly created state enterprises and change the budget to implement administrative reforms.
- Acquire the buildings that make up the San Juan de Dios hospital in Bogotá and restore it. Since Petro’s tenure as mayor of Bogotá (2012-2015) he’s wanted to modernise the hospital and prevent its demolition.
- Modify the Familias en Acción and Jóvenes en Acción benefit programmes.
- Regulate alternative uses of the coca plant, cannabis, and other psychoactive substances.
It seems unlikely that legislators would grant Petro a carte blanche to fund state companies without any limitations or regulate controversial public health issues, such as the use of marijuana or coca leaves. Such contentious topics are usually dealt with in a specific legislative proposal following extensive public debate, rather than tucked into a four-year national development plan.
The request for special powers comes amid a broader attempt by Petro to broaden his control over public utilities and cap the rates they charge. In February he signed a decree that gave him authority for three months to take on the tasks of energy and gas regulator CREG and water regulator CRA [EB-23-02]. Days later, Medellin mayor Daniel Quintero asked Petro via a public letter to freeze rates charged by public utility EDM, which provides services to more than a third of Colombian households.
Petro’s meddling in public utilities has prompted political risk perception to rise, meaning investors charge more to lend the Colombian state and private companies money. Over a dozen former energy ministers have warned Petro that reduced income for utilities due to lower rates could put at risk future investments in the sector.
The government’s plans in this area were put on hold on 2 March, when Colombia’s supreme administrative court, the Consejo de Estado, provisionally suspended the decree as a “precautionary measure” while it assesses the legality of Petro’s move to take control over utility regulators.
Other proposals
Another controversial proposal is to restructure the national police and move its oversight from the defence ministry to a civilian authority. The move is part of the president’s broader effort to ‘democratise’ the security forces. Similarly, he requested a six-month period to take charge of imprisoned indigenous peoples, hoping to improve their conditions and draft new rules. The PND would also create a national system of missing persons as well as a government agency that helps implement decisions by the transitional justice tribunal (JEP), which was established in the 2016 peace accords with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group.
Criticism also came for what the PND failed to mention – the Bogotá metro project, construction of which began in 2020, and which is supposed to revive the congested city centre. “Extraordinary!! It is the first time that the national government does not include the Bogotá metro as a strategic project in its development plan,” Bogotá mayor Claudia López tweeted. The government responded that it didn’t mention the metro because it wasn’t a new project per se. There had been previous standoffs over the project, with the mayor saying that last-minute changes requested by the Petro administration were unnecessary and would delay the metro’s completion.