Of the PEN 250 million received as fiscal redistribution (canon minero), Universidad Nacional de Moquegua (UNAM) invested nearly PEN 200 million, that is, 80% of the total, in the modernization of its infrastructure and equipment, underlined Washington Zeballos, rector of the university, at Rumbo a PERUMIN – Southwestern Peru Edition.

"UNAM has absolutely nothing to envy private universities for, since our facilities have first class infrastructure and state-of-the-art equipment, which benefits all our students, considering that 30% of them come from families living in poverty and extreme poverty," said the representative.

He also acknowledged SUNEDU's effort to promote the improvement of university higher education through meritocracy, evaluation, and the requirement of basic quality conditions, which could be harmed by the recent law passed by Congress which modifies the board of directors of this entity, created in 2014.

"The university must be at the service of society, and it must also be interrelated with private companies to promote research and the development of solutions that contribute to the improvement of quality-of-life indexes. The university reform has been a good starting point, but Congress has just dealt a hard blow to it," he said.

Regional infrastructure issues

On the other hand, based on CENTRUM PUCP statistics on the 2021 regional competitiveness indexes, he remarked that Moquegua is in second place (40.3), whereas Tacna and Arequipa are in fourth (36.4) and fifth place (36.2), respectively. Since the scores are very low, he suggested analyzing the figures carefully to avoid misconstructions.

"In terms of infrastructure, Lima has a score of 50.2. Arequipa is in second place, with 25.0, while Tacna (14.4) and Moquegua (12.7) are in eleventh and fourteenth place, respectively. The points from 0 to 34 are in the extremely low qualification group, so we must be proactive in order to overcome this situation," he reflected.

He also said that the province of Ilo has seven small port terminals with very limited cargo levels, which are managed by the national company Enapu Peru and do not compare with the modern port of Matarani, in Arequipa, whose infrastructure and services put it on a par with the maritime terminals of Arica and Iquique.

In addition, he emphasized that Moquegua has problems of profitability in air transportation, inadequate state of the road network, and absence of a railway project. In this last case, he cited the railroad project that began in 2011 and was postponed two years ago for various reasons, which hinders the integration of the people of the Moquegua region.