Gustavo Petro will not attend Asofondos pension debate

On the afternoon of April 22, the FIAP Asofondos 2022 International Congress will take place in person at the Hilton Hotel in the city of Cartagena. Within the framework of this meeting, a debate will be held with the candidates who aspire to reach Casa de Nariño for the period 2022 - 2026.

The president of Asofondos, union of pension fund administrators, Santiago Montenegro, said that Gustavo Petro will be the only candidate for the President of the Republic who will not attend the pension debate. “We invited Dr. Petro to this congress as I did four years ago to give a debate on the issue of pension, I called him myself,” said the president of Asofondos.

Less than 40 days before the first presidential round, the candidate of the Historical Pact will not be present in a debate that revolves around one of his most controversial proposals: Pensions.

According to the senator, if it were to win the Presidency of the Republic, it would not initially eliminate private pension funds, but would create a good “mixed and complementary system”, where contributors who have more than four salaries can enter without problem. This announcement was made in the debate held by El Tiempo y Semana, where the other candidates of the Historical Pact also participated, days before the inter-party consultations on March 13.

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Montenegro claimed that it has known Gustavo Petro for more than 24 years and that they even worked together on a political campaign by Naomi Sanín. The president of the union reiterated that, “unfortunately we don't know why he didn't come. This is the space to debate, but since he has already made the decision and he is not going to come, the other candidates all confirmed”, he added.

Thus, he will be the only one who will not attend this debate, as Ingrid Betancourt (Oxygen Green), Rodolfo Hernández (Candidate by signatures), Sergio Fajardo, (Esperanza Center Coalition), Federico Gutiérrez, (Team Coalition for Colombia) and Enrique Gómez, (National Salvation), will attend.

According to W Radio, the reason why Petro will not attend this debate is that he has suspended his presence in this type of space and in talks and, in addition, he would have an event in a public square this Friday.

Another anecdote that the union leader confessed was that, “when I left National Planning at the end of Álvaro Uribe's government, Petro made a public statement in which he said he regretted the departure of Dr. Montenegro, one of the best government officials. I called him and said thank you for the compliment.”

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Finally, Montenegro referred to the type of campaign being carried out by the former mayor of Bogotá, which he described as populist and said that “it is a narrative that tends to divide society into two halves. It is like looking for someone to blame for what is happening and has existed since time immemorial and it is what is happening in our country, instead of giving an orderly debate with figures”.

Another aspect that the candidate of the Historical Pact mentioned with regard to the pension system, “is that Colombia must change, because what the country has is a banking profit system. For the country to have a solid system, especially for the elderly, the system must be reformed, but the pension age does not need to be raised.”

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