translated from Spanish: Dismantling THE DEBATE

Mexico is going down an overly dangerous route: the dismantling of its public institutions. The risk itself does not lie in the annihilation of government agencies and programmes, but in the need for anything new to replace them. Worrying gaps are being generated in various fields to be addressed by the public administration. Regime change and administrative decisions that have been taken not only include the reduction of resources for a large number of public units and of autonomous and decentralized organizations. The elimination of programmes, trusts and agencies is also underway. In both cases, the result is that the Government is leaving certain sectors of population or certain activities that the Government has an obligation to provide care without regard. Perhaps wanting to do good is causing enormous social damage. And productive. Declining budgets are having strong consequences. Unfortunately, institutional dismantling is a process that is only just beginning. The immediate consequence is a growing job loss for a large number of public servants. Similarly, there are also more and more social groups that are no longer served by public policies. The government is dismantling itself. Organisms, programmes and budgets are gone, and the most serious thing is that nothing is replacing them. For example, the children’s stay program was eliminated, and thousands of day care centers had to disappear. Today several thousand children, children of working mothers, do not receive the care or education they previously received. But community canteens, agricultural day care, temporary employment and community development programmes also disappeared. Resources for the strengthening of state health services, risk prevention, urban reserve conservation, housing support programmes, and support for civil society organizations were eliminated. In other areas of government, the Criminal Investigation Agency, the Trust Assessment and Control Center, the Federal Center for the Protection of Persons, and the National Crime Control Center also disappeared. In the field of promoting economic activities, the tourism promotion fund, the national institute of entrepreneurs and multiple trusts disappeared. Institutional dismantling affects units, agencies, programmes and budgets. Those institutions eliminated are replaced by actions consisting of delivering cash to beneficiaries. But this only aggravates the situation. The Government of Change is running out of institutional instruments of operation, and it is also turning its back on a good part of society.



Original source in Spanish