(Bloomberg) -- Gustavo Petro’s bid to transform Colombia’s economic model has prompted a personnel crisis, with a stream of cabinet ministers and technocrats leaving their posts amid clashes with the president.

As the traditionally conservative South American nation’s first leftist leader, Petro is trying to deliver radical change for the 11 million Colombian voters that supported him. But after a year and a half in power, his popularity is waning and he’s pushing out long-serving officials in favor of loyalists, stripping his government of institutional knowledge and capacity.

“It sends a message of concern to investors, credit rating agencies and international organizations that see that the executive branch that has historically been prepared and that dominates public policy is lost,” José Manuel Restrepo, a former finance minister who now leads Antioquia-based EIA University, said in an interview.

The latest departure saw Jorge Iván González — who was seen as a key voice of moderation within the government — sacked as head of the National Planning Department in a dispute over infrastructure spending. The president wanted money allocated to projects that weren’t yet in the budget and when González told him that wasn’t possible, he was asked to resign and replaced by a close Petro ally.

Other more centrist officials have been sent packing as well. José Antonio Ocampo, a highly-regarded economist seen as someone who could counter Petro, was ousted as finance minister last year. His colleagues in education and agriculture were also dismissed after disagreeing with Petro about social reforms, including overhauls of healthcare and pensions.

Beyond political appointees, scores of mid-ranking officials with years of experience in key ministries have been asked to resign or seen their contracts not be renewed due to the government’s distrust of those who served in previous administrations, according to people with direct knowledge who spoke on condition they not be named for fear of retaliation.

Technical-level staff were excluded from meetings during fine-tuning of the government’s health reform last year, a former official said. In a meeting before the roadmap bill was presented to Congress, Petro said the draft didn’t represent his vision and blamed technocrats who toiled under his predecessors, according to a person who witnessed the incident.

In response to repeated questions last week about ministerial and staff departures, Petro’s office said by email Sunday that the government values the work and experience of public officials regardless of political affiliation. At the same time, his push for transformational change requires contributions from those previously excluded from the policy making process, so technical skills must be balanced with political considerations in pursuing reform, his office said.

On Friday, however, the president was more incisive. “Technocracy is having alleged technical officials in power. Democracy is having people in power,” Petro said on social-media platform X. “In the first, the people serve the supposed technicians. In the second, the technicians serve the people.”

Since the president took power, his government has changed experience and education requirements for candidates to hold executive positions in key public institutions. The Energy Ministry, state-oil producer Ecopetrol SA’s board and Invima, the oversight agency for food and medicine, have all been affected.

At the Trade Ministry, there were 126 changes out of about 500 positions at a rate of 12 per month since Petro took office through the end of October, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. There’s been even more staff churn since then, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. 

Turnover at the Finance Ministry has also been substantial. Some 158 of 800 people have left their roles since the administration began, according to government figures provided to Senator Paloma Valencia. About a fifth of those who left had two decades experience or more. 

Some mid-ranking officials across the government have become uncomfortable working in roles they’ve held for years, the people said, as their bosses guard against information leaks and seek to blunt internal opposition to Petro’s agenda.

A group of dissidents at a government union sent a letter to Health Minister Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo last year reporting workplace harassment, a hostile environment and stigmatization of those who worked under previous administrations as “internal enemies.”

“The beating that this government has inflicted on technocracy is a shame,” Cecilia López, who was ousted as agriculture minister alongside Ocampo, said Thursday during a public tribute to former officials.

Another dispute saw Martha Lucia Zamora ousted as head of the agency in charge of defending Colombia against international litigation. 

Petro ordered the Foreign Affairs Ministry to void a contract for passport fabrication, arguing there was no competitive bidding process. Zamora instead warned that Colombia would risk a lawsuit and suggested conciliation with the company, Thomas Greg & Sons, which has made passports for almost two decades.

The government didn’t follow her advice and the nation now faces a $30 million compensation claim. Álvaro Leyva, a Petro ally, has since been suspended as foreign minister by the Inspector General’s Office over potential irregularities in the bidding process.

The case took another turn when the ministry’s secretary general awarded the contract to the same company, arguing the decision was made in accordance with the law. But he didn’t have authorization from acting Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, who was traveling. Hours later, Petro used his X account to fire the secretary general, accusing him of “treason.” 

Colombia’s health sector, meanwhile, was one of the first to see changes at technical levels under Petro. With his government seeking to strengthen the role of the state in the delivery of medical services, mid-ranking officials who worked for decades to build the nation’s successful public-private system were seen as an obstacle to reform.

Fernando Ruiz, who led the country’s response to Covid-19 under former President Iván Duque, said that while new ministers often changed their deputies and some department heads, technical officials were traditionally left in their posts. Under Petro, however, he said inexperienced activists took their place.

Colombia was one of the last countries among its peers to implement a response against the monkeypox virus. And the Inspector General’s Office has warned that most of the 6 million Covid vaccines the nation had in stock last year have expired.

“All of this is the result of the initial breakdown between the technical structure and the ministry’s decision-making,” Ruiz said. 

The Health Ministry didn’t respond to several emails seeking comment or to text messages sent to the press office. Carolina Corcho defended the staff changes she made as Petro’s first health minister, saying there are different views about the technicalities of public policy making. 

Rhetoric vs. Reality

González, the former planning chief, argued in an opinion column that Petro understands Colombia’s key societal problems like climate change, the energy transition and the fight against inequality. However, he’s unable to reconcile rhetoric that energizes his base and what’s feasible in the public sector, nor does he recognize institutional, economic, legal and political limits on his power.

Katherine Miranda, a Green Party congresswoman who supported Petro’s bid for the presidency but now disagrees with some of his policies, sees that disconnect as key to his current woes. 

With few people around Petro who are capable of contradicting him, she said, his government is prone to making bad decisions. As an example, she cited the ban on corporate royalty deductions included in the administration’s 2022 tax bill. 

The congresswoman said that during discussions about the proposal, a group of lawmakers warned the president it was unconstitutional. Petro went ahead with the idea anyway, only to see it struck down by Colombia’s top court last November, leaving the government with a nearly $800 million hole in its finances. 

“Petro’s speech and his brain have been much faster than his hands,” Miranda said in an interview. “We haven’t really seen that those ideas, many of them wonderful, can be translated into reality.”

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