Peruvian Economy and Finance Minister Alex Contreras estimated that the cost of combating citizen insecurity in the country represents more than one percentage point of GDP, in terms of budgets and infrastructure improvement.
"The costs of crime are high. The cost of confronting crime in terms of budgets and infrastructure represents more than one (percentage) point of GDP, in addition to the cost overruns for the private sector," he indicated.
The minister noted that, given this scenario,
the Government's commitment is to give more resources to the Ministry of Interior, to strengthen the
Peruvian National Police (PNP) and thus break this trend that had started during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
"What we want is to reverse this trend, thinking about the well-being of citizens. A country with crime and insecurity does not attract tourism or investment. Citizen insecurity affects the heart of the reactivation, which is entrepreneurship," he remarked.
Measures
In this sense, the Cabinet member stressed that specific measures are being taken.
For instance, he underscored that in the short term the disbursement of a supplementary credit for S/5.447 billion (around US$1.436 billion) is being discussed at Congress' Budget Commission.
"This supplementary credit will allow us to continue financing the emergency, the regional reactivation, the sector's reactivation, and will also deliver an 'electroshock of resources' to citizen security. This would be for the October-December period," Contreras underlined.
Moreover, he stressed that a historic budget has been allocated to the
Ministry of Interior for next year, which exceeds S/2.4 billion (around US$632 million).
"It is the highest budget in recent years, in terms of investment. In total, a budget of S/2.4 billion (around US$632 million), in general, has been allocated to the entire citizen security function," he remarked.
(END) RGP/RMB/MVB
Published: 10/4/2023