Colombia: Regarding the inauguration of the new government

Because the town can't take it anymore! We propose these measures to the government of Petro and France

It is 7 of August, the government of the Historical Pact begins, headed by Gustavo Petro, many Colombians expect immediate solutions to the most urgent needs: hunger, unemployment, high cost of living, health and education.

Start delivering on campaign promises, forces the new government to adopt in the first days a package of measures that clearly show, without a shadow of a doubt, that we are facing a real change. change is not words, they are not speeches, they are not show. Change is the measures that drastically and quickly modify the miserable conditions in which millions of Colombians survive.

The electoral triumph of Petro and France was a consequence, fundamentally, of the struggles in the streets of thousands and thousands of dissidents; young boys, women, farmers, indigenous, workers and informal, unemployed, who said no more to the governments of hunger and repression with the struggles that began in the year 2019 and that culminated in the National Strike of 2021.

The Socialist Workers Group and Socialist Impulse propose the following immediate measures that the new government should adopt:

against hunger

That the project of the "Law against hunger" be filed with urgency and that this include the freezing of prices of all the products of the basic food basket and the start of free distribution, direct, to the Colombians who live today in poverty.

–Increase in the minimum wage in line with the rate of inflation, as requested by the trade union centrals.

–Against the high cost of public services; Zero fee for water utilities, energy and gas for the stratum 0, 1; discount of 50% for stratum 2 and discount of 25% for stratum 3.

For free public education

–By education centers, schools, quality colleges and universities.

–Expansion of the budget for higher education that guarantees free education, universal accessibility, guaranteeing an increase in the number of seats for students, the teaching staff and the installed capacity of public universities throughout the country. no more law 30 nor commodification of education!

So that health is not a business

–Health is a fundamental right and the State is obliged to guarantee it as a public right and not a business.

–File urgently the Health Reform Bill, that allows to provide a service with total coverage to Colombians.

–Immediate strengthening of the network of public hospitals in the country, that the EPS pay the debt to clinics and hospitals.

–Elimination of copays.

If Congress does not act. the President will be obliged to assume them immediately.

against unemployment

–Item Compliance 25 of the Political Constitution that says: “Work is a right and a social obligation and enjoys, in all its forms, of the special protection of the State. Every person has the right to work in decent and fair conditions.” This work, to be worthy and fair, The Constitutional Court has said, must meet the requirements of the article 53 from CP, What are they: stable employment contract, with a sufficient salary, social benefits and social security in pensions, occupational health and risks.

–Immediate removal of CAPS, Administrative Contract for Provision of Services. Immediately repeal the regulations on the nefarious contracts for the provision of services and all the people currently hired under that modality, they must go to the payroll of the corresponding entity with their labor rights and with the social security assumed by the employers. End labor outsourcing and intermediation.

–Within a period of no more than three months, all public or private companies must expand their staff by one 30%, increasing their production or redistributing the work among all the employees –decreasing their working hours– without affecting their salary compensation.

money if there is

To initiate this emergency plan, the government has sufficient resources.

1. Reduction of 50% of the budget of the Armed Forces and the Police; allocating that budget to education and public health.

2. Suspension of payment of public external debt, which is at US$100,582 million and the private one which is currently at US$73,731 million, both making a total of US$174 billion. Number that takes 49,2% of the country's GDP.

This external debt has been the way in which the bloodsuckers of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international financial institutions have looted the country, plunging into misery millions and millions in the world.

3. In the next Tax Reform project, to present, tax exemptions for the financial sector should be eliminated, to the oil companies, and mining companies, granted by the Duque government in the 2019.

These will be the basic demands to the government of Gustavo Petro, many of them promised in electoral campaign. the popular wrestlers, who supported the Historical Pact with their vote are waiting for the fulfillment of the electoral promises. We, the Group of Socialist Workers GTS and Impulso Socialista, we know that within capitalism the evils that afflict the dispossessed will not be able to end, to the "nobodies", that is why our commitment is with them. Thus, our struggle and mobilization will be permanent until we defeat capitalist exploitation.

Socialist Workers Group – Socialist Impulse