In the midst of the state funerals underway to say goodbye to former president Sebastián Piñera, the legacy of his two presidential terms stands out. In Ñuble, his last presidential term (2018-2022) was marked by transcendent measures for the region, such as the launch of the new region and the start of work on the new hospital, as well as by issues that were pending, such as the new prison or the Punilla reservoir.
The last official visit of the president to the region was on August 20, 2021, when he participated in the commemorative activities of a new birth of Bernardo O’Higgins in Chillán Viejo, along with visiting the works of the new Regional Hospital, at that time with a total progress of 20% and 65% of infrastructure.
“In total there are 130 thousand square meters and more than $204 billion of investment, with all the specialties and with cutting-edge technology that includes some that were not available here, so they had to resort to the Bío Bío Region,” he stated. then the president.
According to analysts, politicians and authorities consulted by La Discusión days before the end of his second term, the great achievement of the second Piñera government in Ñuble was to complete the installation of the new region, a project that was promoted by the government of Michelle Bachelet, but that the administration of the deceased head of state assumed without complexes, especially that it gave him the possibility of incorporating his militants into the new regional bureaucracy. This process was not free of difficulties and internal power conflicts, but the concrete thing is that all public services remained operating in the territory. Where the change in status from province to region was most noticeable was in the increase in the public budget, which grew by 70% between 2019 and 2021, reaching almost 700 billion pesos and also in the regional free decision funds, which went from 25 billion to 50 billion.
The advances in roads and drinking water for rural communities were also highlighted. From building just over 20 kilometers a year when Ñuble was a province, it went to more than 100 kilometers per year, that is, the investment in this area increased five times, while from 2018 to March 2022, 2,734 new startups were built. of drinking water in rural areas.
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However, the Piñera Government was also left behind on important issues for this territory, such as the Punilla reservoir, its great campaign promise, as well as the construction of a new prison complex, which is still at a standstill. Added to this is the abandonment of the Backward Zone Program, which had the mission of lifting the poorest communes in the province of Itata out of backwardness. The initiative, which in 2018 was already beginning to show positive results, ended up reduced to a couple of projects and transfers to “gift” municipalities, and converted into a job bank for political operators.
Sebastián Piñera also had to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, facing an unthinkable and complex situation with relative success.
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