Peruvian president Castillo dismisses health minister

Peru’s President Pedro Castillo will remove Health Minister Jorge López from his post.

The head of state was responding to a report that revealed López had handed over envelopes containing 9,000 soles (US$2,250) in cash to six health ministry employees to be deposited in a bank account in the name of Dervy Apaza, his ex-partner and mother of his two daughters, and intended for the purchase of an apartment.

After the report aired on the Sunday program “Punto Final,” Castillo announced on Twitter, “To demonstrate absolute transparency in my government, I have decided to terminate its functions.”

With that money and the sale of a tomograph, Apaza bought an apartment in a Lima neighborhood by transferring money from a López bank account, according to the journalistic investigation.

The minister told Punto Final that he had given his trusted associates a total of 100,000 soles (US$25,000) to deposit in Apaza’s account as part of a family arrangement but that he did not know why the deposits were made in portions.

López took over the Ministry of Health last April.

After his dismissal, Castillo will have to appoint the fourth head of that department in his government, while more than seventy cabinet ministers have been sworn in since he took office in July 2021.