NEW HOUSING MINISTER RUDECINDO VEGA

UNCLAS LIMA 003593

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR WHA/AND

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV ECON PE
SUBJECT: NEW HOUSING MINISTER RUDECINDO VEGA

REF: A) LIMA 3489 (B) LIMA 3476 (C) LIMA 3549 (D) LIMA 3518


1. Summary. New Housing Minister Rudecindo Vega has served
the last three years as Chief of Staff to outgoing Housing
Minister Carlos Bruce. Since 2003, he also served as
Technical Secretary to the GOP Interministerial Commission
on Social Issues. Vega is a respected technocrat. He has
had successful posts in various GOP offices dealing with
decentralization, the Human Rights Ombudsman and anti-
corruption. Vega has also worked with prominent Peruvian
and international NGOs on election reform and human rights.
End Summary.


2. President Toledo swore in Rudecindo Vega Carreazo as his
new Minister of Housing, Construction and Sanitation on
8/16. He had been Chief of Staff to outgoing Minister
Carlos Bruce since 2002. Since 2003 he has also served as
the Technical Secretary for the GOP's Interministerial
Commission on Social Issues. Through mid 2002, Vega was the
Chief of Staff for the Prime Minister.


3. Vega has a long history of professional work on national
government reform issues, particularly decentralization,
anti-corruption and electoral reform. From 2001 to 2002 he
worked extensively on decentralization issues, serving as
Executive Secretary of the Technical Secretariat for
Decentralization and President of the Executive Commission
for Regional and Local Connectivity. As President of the
Commission for Building Regional and Local Capacity, he
helped formulate the national plan for training regional
authorities. For several years he has produced and anchored
a television program focused on decentralization for the
state television station.


4. Vega contributed to government reform as Director of the
Office of Institutional Development in the national Human
Rights Ombudsman's Office from 1997 to 1998. He worked in
2002 as a consultant to the World Bank on anti-corruption
and justice reform, as well as Technical Secretary for the
GOP Ministry of Justice Anti-corruption Program.


5. Vega was Technical Secretary and Director of Citizen
Education at the respected Peruvian election watchdog NGO
Transparencia from 1995 to 2000. He served as an election
observer in Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Guatemala and the
Dominican Republic. During the same time he worked as a
consultant to the InterAmerican Institute of Human Rights
and for the National Democratic Institute, a U.S. NGO.


6. Vega earned a law degree in 1988 from the Pontifical
Catholic University of Peru in Lima, where he has also
taught courses through the present. He was born in 1963 in
a small town in the northern Amazonas Department.


7. COMMENT: Outgoing Housing Minister Carlos Bruce will be
a hard act to follow, as he was one of Toledo's longest-
serving and popular ministers (Refs A and B). The media
have reacted favorably to Vega's appointment, and NGOs that
worked with Vega speak favorably of him. With his solid
record of government service, Vega can be expected to
continue Bruce's popular and successful efforts to improve
access to housing for middle- and lower-income Peruvians.

STRUBLE