Property and assets seized from drug traffickers and other criminals in Colombia will now be sold or used for the benefit of the most disadvantaged, announced President Gustavo Petro.
“The directive we have given is that these goods will be put at the service of the people“, said Gustavo Petro during a public trip to Villavicencio (Center) on Wednesday. “There are billions of unused pesos there in all kinds of goods: luxury apartments, luxury houses, land, silver, jewelry, emeralds, gold, works of art. .. All this can have a social function“, he underlined.
“New social economy”
The newly elected president, the first left-wing head of state in the history of Colombia, intends to transform the institution in charge of the management, sale or rental of these assets, the SAE (Special Assets Company) . Gustavo Petro severely criticized this SAE, undermined in recent years by “huge cases of corruptionthrough which, according to him, the seized goods returned to the hands of criminals or to the benefit of political figures.
During his trip, the president proceeded to the transfer of land, subject to “extinction of propertyto accommodate 85 families who lost their homes in the heavy rains that have been hitting the country for several weeks. Seized agricultural land must be leased to peasants at prices “cheap“to allow them”to have crop profitability“. The other lands may be transferred for “the construction of housing or the development of productive projects in order to encourage a new social economy», according to Gustavo Petro.
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Colombia’s new president came to power promising to carry out pro-poor tax reform as well as agrarian reform that would redistribute unproductive fertile land to boost food production.
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