Politics: Latest report from the federal audit authority belies AMLO’s anticorruption claims

MEXICO - Report 28 Feb 2022 by Guillermo Valdes and Francisco González

At a time when stories such as the “Gray House” once rented by the president’s son and the debate on corruption within the López Obrador’s government dominate the political agenda, the Superior Auditor of the Federation (ASF) presented the results of its audit of public spending for calendar year 2020. The results reaffirm that the current administration is indistinguishable from its predecessors when it comes to proper handling of public resources.

The report corresponds to the second year of this administration, when the new team of public officials had traversed their learning curve and, in theory at least, had become aware of the complexities of the administrative processes that must be applied to manage public resources in both timely and legal ways. However, the results the ASF presented reveal that under the current government abundant irregular practices persist, many of them resulting from the forced pace at which the Federal Executive had been implementing its priority public works projects.

In fact, the ASF presented 13% more actions/observations regarding public spending than for AMLO’s first year in office (2019). The totality of ASF observations involve 63 billion pesos (just over 3 billion dollars), 22 billion of which were spent by the federal government and the remainder by state and municipal governments. And according to a report by the organization Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) covering the first half of 2021, 80.6% worth 74.64 billion pesos of total government contracts were direct award, and that percentage breaks well above 90% in the case of advertising and Covid-19 related contracts.

Not only has there been an increase in directly awarding contracts relative to the other major methods (public tenders and restricted bidding), but there has also been an ongoing uptrend in the relative amount of funds allocated under direct award procedures that dates back to 2018.

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