De la Espriella Formalises 15-Entity Shake-Up, Removing Petro Appointees

Colombia · POLITICS

The De la Espriella appointments, set out in twenty-four decrees issued on Tuesday, put the new government’s stamp on agencies from the financial-intelligence unit to the foreign service, while a prison-ship plan, an anti-migrant crackdown and a labour row keep the opposition on the offensive.

BOGOTÁ, 26 August 2026 — President Abelardo de la Espriella on Tuesday signed 24 decrees formalising the De la Espriella appointments across 15 state entities, the biggest single-day personnel sweep of his nineteen-day-old administration, cementing the removal of officials inherited from his predecessor Gustavo Petro and confirming his picks for two of Colombia’s most sensitive diplomatic posts in the United States.

What the De la Espriella appointments decrees formalise

The decrees, issued on 25 August and reported by El Heraldo, cover watchdog and control agencies in the financial and health sectors, migration, trade, agriculture and pensions, as well as diplomatic posts and government representatives on regional bodies. Six further entities received interim appointees. The De la Espriella appointments place Martha Luz Reyes Ferro at the head of the Financial Information and Analysis Unit (UIAF), José Luis Castañeda Tiria in charge of Migración Colombia, Julia Eva Pretelt Vargas at the Superintendency of Companies, María Andrea Godoy Casadiego at the National Health Superintendency, Pablo Andrés Rivas Herazo at the Financial Superintendency, Karen Patricia Hernández Blanquicett at the Superintendency of the Solidarity Economy and Elda Arely de Hoyos Guayazán as Accountant General of the Nation.

Carlos Eduardo Campo Cuello takes over the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA), while Julián Felipe Franco Restrepo and Pedro Agustín Roa Arboleda become vice-ministers of Tourism and of Migratory Affairs respectively. Ángela Isabel Ramos Garcés was named to Artesanías de Colombia, Nerio José Alvis Barranco to the Higher School of Public Administration (ESAP) and D’Mar Córdoba Salamanca to the National Centre for Historical Memory. Diana Margarita Ojeda Visbal and Nicolás Farfán Namen join the board of the state pension fund Colpensiones.

The same package legalised the exit of two officials linked to the previous administration. Javier Pava left the management of the Adaptation Fund, a post he had held since 31 July, with presidential legal secretary Andrés Barreto González taking over on an interim basis. Wilmar de Jesús Mejía, the outgoing UIAF director, had tendered his resignation, but the government formalised his removal through a declaration of insubsistencia — the mechanism used for freely appointed and removed posts — and installed Reyes Ferro in his place. El Heraldo described the package as formalising both the arrivals and the departures.

Araújo confirmed in Washington, Naman heads to New York

Among the De la Espriella appointments with the highest diplomatic profile, the decrees confirm María Consuelo Araújo Castro as ambassador to the United States, a designation first reported by Semana on 17 August and left in firm by the decree signed on Tuesday, according to El Espectador. Araújo, a former foreign minister from one of the Caribbean coast’s most prominent political families, takes over the embassy in Washington at a moment when the bilateral agenda is dominated by trade and security cooperation, including Colombia’s adhesion to the anti-cartel coalition known as A3C, as El Espectador reported.

Decree 1302 of 25 August names Camilo Naman Louis Castaño as consul general in New York, according to Semana and the text of the decree published by the presidency, the busiest Colombian consulate in the United States. Both appointments fit a broader reshaping of the foreign service: the administration has announced plans to close 14 embassies and 15 consulates, according to La República, arguing that the diplomatic network must shrink to match fiscal reality.

A prison ship for crime bosses

Surfacing in the same week as the De la Espriella appointments, the government confirmed it is evaluating the construction or adaptation of a prison ship — a buque cárcel — to isolate the country’s most dangerous crime bosses, according to Seguimiento.co, while El Heraldo reported that the administration is preparing prison facilities in open waters so that criminal ringleaders cannot run their organisations from behind bars. No budget, tender or timetable has been made public, and officials stress the proposal remains at the evaluation stage.

The idea extends a hardline penitentiary policy that began on the president’s second day in office, when he ordered the transfer of 117 inmates from the La Paz prison in Itagüí to maximum-security facilities; Antioquia governor Andrés Julián Rendón said 103 of those moved were bosses of criminal organisations, El Colombiano reported. ‘In the Era of the Tiger, the prison is finished as a centre of operations for the bandits,’ De la Espriella said at the time, in remarks carried by La Jornada. The president, an open admirer of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, has also proposed privately financed mega-prisons in isolated areas without telephone signal, arguing that Colombian jails have become what he calls universities of crime, La FM reported.

Anti-migrant offensive draws accusations of xenophobia

Speaking at a security council in Barranquilla, the seat of his government, De la Espriella this week ordered Migración Colombia and the city’s police to launch operations to identify foreigners in an irregular situation and those committing crimes, who he said would be deported. ‘I am not going to accept illegal immigrants from wherever they come who are committing crimes in Colombia. They leave and we deport them,’ he said, in remarks carried in a video released by his office and reported by the Argentine daily Página/12. He added that the operations would target first foreigners committing crimes and second those without regular status, who sooner or later would have to be deported.

The measures — which include a rewards system and raids in Barranquilla and a new round of prison transfers — were described by Página/12 as an anti-migrant offensive, and the announcement drew accusations of xenophobia from critics who argue the rhetoric conflates migration with criminality in a country that hosts close to three million Venezuelan migrants. The crackdown will be implemented by a migration agency whose new director, José Luis Castañeda Tiria, was himself confirmed in Tuesday’s De la Espriella appointments. The president paired the migration orders with a declaration that all illegal armed groups will be treated as terrorists regardless of their name, scrapping the distinctions drawn under the Petro government’s peace policy.

Labour circulars repeal sparks clash with the opposition

The De la Espriella appointments week also brought a clash over labour policy: the Labour Ministry’s Resolution 2708 of 20 August repealed 11 circulars issued between September 2025 and July 2026 under the Petro administration, according to Portafolio. The resolution, signed under minister Natalia Eugenia López, swept away guidance covering the labour reform, working hours, collective bargaining, reinforced job stability, paid domestic work and digital delivery platforms. The ministry argues the circulars exceeded their administrative function by creating obligations not found in law; labour lawyer Camilo Cuervo told Caracol Radio’s La Luciérnaga that a circular should not modify the law, and much less the decrees that develop it.

Historic Pact senator Iván Cepeda, the defeated presidential candidate of the movement that backed Petro, called the repeal an open aggression against labour rights and proof of a government against the people and against workers, Portafolio reported. The ministry insists no statutory rights are removed, that laws and court rulings continue to apply, and has promised a replacement instrument on collective bargaining; Senate president Honorio Henríquez publicly backed the repeal, according to Opinión Caribe. Among the most contested changes, labour inspectors will no longer be able to enter private homes without consent to check on domestic workers, a faculty the repealed Circular 0089 had asserted and the new government says never had legal cover.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• www.elheraldo.co
• www.elespectador.com
• www.semana.com
• www.pagina12.com.ar
• www.portafolio.co
• seguimiento.co
• www.elcolombiano.com
• www.opinioncaribe.com

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