• The former governor of Ica stated that it is important to include the private sector in the improvement of public service quality.

During his participation in the conference program Road to PERUMIN, Fernando Cillóniz, former governor of Ica, shared some proposals to contribute to closing gaps in the country and improving the quality of life of more Peruvians.

One of these proposals is precisely to involve taxpayers, such as mining and hydrocarbon companies, in the management of the canon, in order to achieve better results.

"There is no way to improve the management of the canon through regional or local governments. That is why my proposal is to necessarily involve taxpayers, consequently the miners, as well as the beneficiaries", he noted.

He also said that it is important to implement the "services for taxes" mechanism to improve the quality of basic fundamental services (water and sanitation, education and health), which is quite poor by world standards.

"I celebrate Works for Taxes because the work of delivering the hospital, the school, the drinking water system is good, the problem is the ineptitude and corruption of the mayors to manage the water and sanitation companies, for example," he said.

In this sense, he explained that it would be convenient for taxpayers, i.e. private companies, to manage services such as drinking water through the subcontracting of specialized companies.

"I do not pretend that a mining company should manage a water and sanitation company, but that it should hire specialized companies through services for taxes," he remarked.

Finally, Cillóniz said that it is essential to implement a radical administrative simplification in the public sector in order to improve processes and accelerate development in the country.

He also shared a brief account of his experience at the head of the Regional Government of Ica, with respect to mining informality in this area of the country.

"Mining informality in Ica, which is different from mining informality in Madre de Dios, is caused by the State. The Ministry of Culture, instead of protecting the 5,000 hectares occupied by the Nazca line, has designed an intangible polygon of 500,000 hectares that goes all the way to Ayacucho," he commented.

According to Cillóniz, the Ministry of Culture covered the entire Nazca mining area, which is very rich in copper and gold, and they have outlawed all small and medium miners. "We wanted to help them but this ministry made it impossible," he finished.

Road to PERUMIN

Road to PERUMIN is an initiative of the Peruvian Institute of Mining Engineers (IIMP) and the Executive Committee of PERUMIN 36. It includes an agenda of virtual activities that seek to generate spaces for analysis, knowledge and debate on mining.