Cablegate: Bios for Agriculture, Energy, Transport & Housing

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R 101620Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY LIMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1763
INFO RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 3746
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2531
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 9716
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RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ AUG SANTIAGO 0789
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUMIAAA/USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS LIMA 003137

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SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR WHA/AND, WHA/EPSC, EB/OMA, EB/TPP
COMMERCE FOR 4331/MAC/WH/MCAMERON
USTR FOR BHARMAN AND MCARRILLO

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON PGOV ETRD EINV TBIO PREL PE

SUBJECT: BIOS FOR AGRICULTURE, ENERGY, TRANSPORT & HOUSING
MINISTERS

REF: A) LIMA 3102 (B) LIMA 3013

1. (U) Biographic information for President Alan Garcia's Ministers
of Agriculture, Energy and Mining, Transportation, and Housing
follows below. These ministers took office on July 28, 2006. See
Ref A for the bios of the Prime Minister and Foreign, Defense, and
Interior Ministers, and Ref B for bios on the Ministers of Finance,
Trade, and Production.

Agriculture - Jose Salazar
--------------------------
2. (U) Juan Jose SALAZAR Garcia is an agricultural engineer and a
rice, cotton and sugar cane producer. He was President of the
Northwestern Maranon Region from 1989 to 1992 (an ill-fated
legislative attempt to carve macroregions out of Peru's departments)
and Mayor of Ferrenafe (Lambayeque Department) for two terms
(1987-1989 & 2003-2006).

3. (U) Salazar was born in Ferrenafe on February 18, 1947. He
received his agricultural engineering degree from Peru's National
University of Lambayeque (now Pedro Ruiz Gallo University). He has
spoken on local government management, regionalization and
decentralization at numerous academic events around the world. He
is a longtime member of the APRA party.

4. (U) Comment: Salazar will be a key player in implementing
APRA's "Sierra Exportadora" plan to increase exports from the poor
living in Peru's highlands. He has already announced that he will
focus on agricultural research, technical assistance and the
construction of small irrigation infrastructure as the first step of
the plan. Salazar will probably restructure the Ministry of
Agriculture to emphasize these activities. He supports the
U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, and has expressed the need to
switch from traditional crops to exportable products, taking
advantage of the PTPA as a way to reduce poverty. End Comment.

Energy & Mines - Juan Valdivia
------------------------------
5. (U) Juan Gualberto VALDIVIA Romero was elected to represent the
Ancash region in Congress three times (1985-1990, 1990-1992, and
2001-2006). He presided over the Committee on Energy and Mines
during the last session (2005-2006), and the Committee on Production
and Small-Medium Enterprises from 2002-2003. He introduced numerous
bills related to the energy/mining sector during his legislative
career, including: reducing the sulfur content of diesel fuel,
rural electrification, reforming the electric sector concessions and
reforming the Camisea Natural Gas project's Socioeconomic
Development Fund (FOCAM). He was also key in introducing the
controversial bill ordering the tax agency SUNAT to require all
mining companies to pay royalties even if they had a tax stability
agreement (President Toledo vetoed that bill). He also served as
the mayor of El Santa province, Ancash from 1981-1983.

6. (U) Valdivia was born in Chimbote, Ancash region, on February 6,
1948, and has been a member of the APRA party since his youth. He
graduated as an architect from the Federico Villareal National
University (UNFV) in Lima, an APRA stronghold. He is married and
has four children, three of whom reside in the U.S. He does not
speak English.

7. (SBU) Comment: Valdivia is not recognized as a real expert on
energy and mining issues, but has a reputation for honesty and
belongs to Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo's pro-business faction
of the APRA Party. However, Valdivia is a close friend of APRA
congressman Jose Carlos CARRASCO Tavara, and has supported
Carrasco's well-known statist positions. Valdivia has a
well-publicized debt of around one million dollars resulting from a
failed agricultural venture, and it was rumored that the debt and
associated litigation would prevent President Garcia from naming him
minister. End Comment.

Transportation & Communications - Veronica Zavala
--------------------------------------------- ----
8. (U) Veronica ZAVALA Lombardi is a well-known public sector

manager. She was twice the Secretary for Public Management for the
Presidency of the Council of Ministers (2001-2002 and 2005-2006).
She was also the Executive Director of FONAFE (the state holding
company for public assets and direction of parastatals, 2000-2001),
Manager of the Institutional Reform branch of the Liberty and
Democracy Institute, a member of the Directive Council of the
National Sanitation Services Authority (SUNASS), Project Director at
the Commission for the Promotion of Private Investment (COPRI), and
a member of the Market Access and Consumer Protection Committees of
INDECOPI (the GOP's competition watchdog and intellectual property
office). She is a professor at the Catholic University of Peru
(PUCP), the University of San Martin de Porres (SMP), and the
University of Applied Sciences (UCA).

9. (U) Zavala was born in Lima on February 20, 1967. She has a
Master's in Public Administration from Harvard University (1995) and
a law degree from the Catholic University of Peru (PUCP, 1990). She
has published numerous articles on institutional reform and public
administration.

10. (U) Zavala is not a member of any political party, but is a
recognized public administration expert and the younger sister of
the outgoing Minister of Economy and Finance, Fernando Zavala.

Housing - Hernan Garrido-Lecca
------------------------------
11. (U) Hernan GARRIDO-LECCA Montanez is a jack-of-all trades, who
was an economic advisor during the first Garcia administration. In
1985, at the age of 25, he became the Vice President and CEO of
Peru's third largest bank (Interbank, which was then state-owned
with 200 branches and 3,000 employees), after which he became the
negotiator of Peru's $19 billion foreign debt. He worked as an
investment officer for the World Bank's International Financial
Corporation (IFC) in Washington, DC from 1989-1992. He then
returned to Peru in the midst of the Shining Path insurgency and
founded NorAndina, an investment banking services boutique. He
later sold his company and took an early retirement at the age of
40.

12. (U) Garrido-Lecca was a founding member of prestigious
consultancy and pollster Apoyo S.A., and President at various times
of ProRegiones, Alpamayo Entertainment, Tandem Computers of Peru,
Agroindustrial Paramonga, 123remate.com, ECONATURA, ProCallao,

Desarrollos Siglo XXI S.A.A, Telecable S.A.A., Bembos S.A.C.,
Agricola San Juan S.A.A., and various banks and financial
institutions.

13. (U) Garrido-Lecca has also been a researcher for the Analysis
for Development Group (GRADE); a print, radio and television
journalist (one of his TV shows was shut down during Fujimori's
authoritarian administration); an economics professor at the
University of the Pacific (UP) and the University of San Martin de
Porres (USMP); and a narrator and award-winning poet. He even
worked as the executive director of a motion picture, forayed into
graphic design and created a commemorative postage stamp, thought up
several prize-winning inventions (he is President of the Peruvian
Society of Inventors), and has been a leader of the consumers'
rights movement in Peru since 1989. Garrido-Lecca led the April
1998 nation-wide "telephone strike" which forced the GOP and the
telephone company to open the market for competition.

14. (U) Garrido-Lecca was born in Lima on May 18, 1960. His
academic degrees are impressive -- a Master's in Public
Administration from Harvard University, a Master's in Science and
Technology Policy from MIT, an undergraduate business degree from UP
(1981), a Master's in Peruvian and Latin American Literature from
the National Major University of San Marcos, and a Ph.D. (candidate)
in Administration from the University of Seville, Spain. He has
published over a dozen books on economics, science and technology,
and consumers' rights. His most recent passion has been authoring
children's books, which have won prizes, with one adapted into a
successful theatrical play. He is a long-time member of Garcia's
APRA party, but ran for Congress in 2001 with the Union por el Peru
(UPP) party because of a temporary falling-out with Garcia.

STRUBLE

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