President Abelardo De la Espriella Replaces DANE Director Ricardo Valencia with Juan Manuel Alvarado

President Abelardo De la Espriella has declared Ricardo Valencia insubsistent from his position as director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) and appointed economist Juan Manuel Alvarado Nivia as his replacement. Valencia had served as director for 26 days. The presidency justified the removal based on Valencia's statements during a press conference regarding labor market figures. Specifically, the government objected to Valencia stating that he had found no anomalies in how DANE processes data, arguing that such a claim was made without the completion of deep audits. The government also cited a failure to follow Presidential Directive 001 regarding the institutional coordination of press conferences, specifically referencing a canceled event on September 7.

Ricardo Valencia has defended his actions, stating that he acted with technical rigor and that his comments reflected the information available to him at the time. He noted that he had not found anomalies during his tenure as director, nor during his previous roles as subdirector and advisor. Valencia also mentioned his intention to convene a committee of experts in demography and household surveys to address projected demographic changes.

Juan Manuel Alvarado, a former official in the Mayor's Office of Barranquilla with degrees from the University of the North and the University of Oxford, will now lead the agency. One of his primary tasks will be to conduct a review of the information received from the previous administration and communicate the results. The government stated that this move is part of an effort to modernize DANE's technological capabilities and ensure that statistics are rigorous and reliable.

Reporting on the event differed by political lean. A center left source framed the event as a debate over the independence of DANE and highlighted Valencia's defense of the agency's technical nature. A center right source focused more on the professional profile of the new appointee and the government's goal of updating institutional capacities.