President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the Legal Counsel of his office to audit all public administration funds and trusts, and in case of irregularities, he said, criminal complaints will be filed with the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic (FGR).
“The defense of those trusts and funds was the defense of corruption as well. And that’s why my thanks to the legislators who were voted in favour (of elimination) today in the Senate,” he said.
This Wednesday, the Senate generally and in particular approved the extinction of 109 trusts and funds.
The representative reiterated that these trusts were managed without transparency, without control, there was discretion, that is, there was no audit, no clear accounts were held. “There are indications, including allegations of corruption over the mis management of these trusts,” he said.
López Obrador said that in three months he will announce a list of trusts where irregularities have been found.
“It is striking that many opposition groups to the government I lead undertook an entire campaign to misinform and maintain these trusts. Of course there are vested interests, instead of the legislators defending these trusts being embarrassed, they launched themselves with everything defending these trusts and showing copper (…) The defense of these trusts and those funds was the defense of corruption, just as clearly,” he said.
“There were million-dollar transfers to the private sector”
The conacyt holder, María Elena Alvarez-Buylla, reported that from 2013 to 2018 there were million-dollar transfers to the private sector that reached 891 million pesos.
He detailed that more than 15 billion pesos were transferred through trusts alone; In addition, through the Innovation Stimulus Programme, with transfers through the Innovation Stimulus Program (PEI), operations were carried out for more than 26 billion pesos.
In total, the private received an amount of 41 billion pesos during that period, he said.
Alvarez-Buylla also emphasized that, through the Conacyt and PEI trusts, Intel, Whirlpool, Volkswagen, Mabe, Honeywell, IBM, Kimberly Clark, Bayer, Monsanto, Femsa Logística and Bimbo received a total of 891 billion pesos.
The civil servant stressed that during the past six years, 44% of all resources managed from the Conacyt allegedly for scientific and technological development and innovation were transferred to the private sector, while 56% went to the public sector.
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