The newly invested president of Paraguay, Pedro Alliana, has addressed this Friday the people affected by the financial scandal linked to Ueno Bank —a crisis that led to the removal of the former president Santiago Peña— to assure them that “they will be compensated” and to emphasize that the new Executive will not “leave them alone”.
“Fellow countrymen who today are going through a difficult moment as a consequence of the financial debacle will be fully compensated; we are not going to leave you alone. I order that immediate actions be taken to make restitution to the savers with preferences for the least favored,” Alliana proclaimed during the swearing-in ceremony before Congress, where he warned that he “does not want lukewarm people for this mission”.
In his address, the new head of State has stressed that the action of his Government should focus on the country’s internal priorities. For that reason, he asked the members of his cabinet to limit their trips abroad to the maximum, authorizing them only for “unpostponable reasons” and of strict necessity, as a gesture to try to rebuild the trust of citizens and voters.
“Enough has already been done abroad. I am going to be a president who takes care of Paraguay from within. I ask the ministers that traveling be for an unpostponable reason and that working in the territories of the homeland be the absolute priority,” he stated.
Alliana also recalled the time horizon of the current term, which runs until the elections of August 15, 2028, a period in which he aspires to “build a worthy Government, one that will be remembered for its generosity toward citizens and for its firmness against those who intend to steal their future”.
“That is why I demand of the ministers that at the end of each day they give me an account of the action they carried out in each working day, without excuses and with respect,” the president insisted.
Among the key lines of his program, the head of State has placed emphasis on the reduction of public spending considered superfluous, on the priority attention to the most vulnerable sectors of society, and on the search for solutions for savers harmed by the Ueno Bank crisis.
With this investiture, Pedro Alliana becomes the 52nd president of the Republic of Paraguay, after Santiago Peña’s departure as a result of the financial scandal. The vice president until now, who shared with Peña the constitutional period 2023-2028, will have to complete the remaining year and nine months of the current term.
Peña’s resignation was directly linked to the collapse of Ueno Bank, a financial entity related to the former business partners of the former president, which ended up being intervened by the Central Bank after its solvency fell below the minimum thresholds, which showed its inability to guarantee the deposits of millions of clients.
In this context, the Chamber of Deputies rejected last Thursday the opening of a new 'impeachment' against Alliana in the banking case, a decision that cleared his path definitively toward the head of state.