Quito – The reelected president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, said Friday that in the next four years his government will focus on “public investment and affect criminal economies.”
Noboa will be possessed on Saturday for a new period that will run until 2029, in a country overwhelmed by violence despite its hard hand policy against drug trafficking.
Between January and April there were 3,084 homicides, according to figures from the Ministry of Interior.
The ruler, who came to power for the first time in 2023 in an early elections, also has the challenge of refloating the economy and oil production, the main traditional export product.
“In the next four years we are going to focus on public investment that generates progress and employment. That is the heart of our economic plan,” Noboa said in an interview with the Visionary portal.
He added that the government must also “work clearly in security.”
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“Disarticular organized crime”
The president sent last week a bill that seeks to dismantle crime, give tax benefits to those who donate equipment for security forces and authorize the direct use of force to police and military who fight crime.
“The objective is to affect criminal economies (…) If they still have resources, this dispute will follow or in the jungle,” Noboa said.
The Government declared an internal armed conflict last year in Ecuador and identified about twenty groups that it qualifies as “terrorists.”
The bands are dedicated to drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, murder and illegal mining.
According to Noboa, in Ecuador there are 40,000 band members, almost double the 22,000 drug traffickers that exist in Colombia, according to official figures.
To organized crime “we have to remove the money, we have to remove the sources of income,” said the ruler, detailing that among his plans is to promote the national gold refinement to avoid smuggling of land and stones with precious metals.
At the beginning of May, eleven Ecuadorian military died in an ambush of the dissidents of the former FARC ex -guerrillas, when they carried out an operation against illegal mining in the Amazon.
