COLOMBIA’S government will propose legislation aimed at overhauling the health sector and will pursue changes to labour laws, President Gustavo Petro said on Saturday as he inaugurated a new session of congress.

Mr Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, has pushed an ambitious set of economic changes that includes changing the pension system, raising the minimum wage and redistributing land to farmers affected by Colombia’s armed conflict.

He managed to get the minimum wage boosted last year and his pension plan approved by congress earlier this year, but he has struggled to persuade legislators to adopt his ideas on labour laws and the health system.

The coalition of political parties that joined Mr Petro’s government at the beginning of his term has broken up due to ideological differences. Meanwhile, numerous corruption scandals involving government ministers and the presiden’s eldest son have decreased his popularity.

Leftist parties loyal to the president have their highest number of legislative seats in Colombia’s history, but they lack the 50 per cent majority needed to pass legislation on their own and have been forced to bargain with parties on the center and the right.

For health care, Mr Petro wants a government agency to be in charge of collecting billions of pounds in insurance fees from Colombians, side lining the private insurance companies that currently manage much of the health system.

For the labour sector, he wants to make it harder for companies to hire workers on temporary contracts and also require employers to pay workers full wages on rest days.

He also proposed that legislators reduce the work week from 47 hours to 40, arguing that could increase employment and spur productivity.

Mr Petro told congress on Saturday that increasing the minimum wage by 16 per cent last year helped to reduce poverty, which decreased 10 per cent in 2023 and is now at similar levels seen in 2019, according to the national statistics department.

“We are fulfilling our promises” to reduce inequality, the president said.