President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met this Saturday with businessman Carlos Slim to evaluate the progress of the construction of the Maya Train, one of the emblematic works of the current administration.
“I had breakfast in Palenque with Carlos Slim because we are evaluating the progress in the construction of the Maya Train and your company has a section at your expense. We also talked about other issues and showed him the biggest ceiba I have in the fifth,” the president wrote on his Twitter account.
Read: Semarnat authorizes Phase 1 of the Maya Train and the logging of 800 hectares of jungle
I had breakfast in Palenque with Carlos Slim because we are evaluating the progress in the construction of the Maya Train and your company has a section at your expense. We also talked about other topics and showed him the biggest ceiba I have in the fifth. pic.twitter.com/SCdXVO57Zx
— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) April 17, 2021
Last month, Rogelio Jiménez Pons, director general of the National Tourism Development Fund (Fonatur), reported that the resources obtained through the Maya Train will not go to the Ministry of Finance to be part of the graduate budget, but that all proceeds will go directly to the Army.
The entry of the armed forces as owners of the mega-work will prevent the railway from being privatized as was the case with other projects in past administrations, the official said.
Various groups and communities have secured protections to achieve a provisional suspension of the works in the face of the risk of forced evictions, lack of transparency and public participation in the consultation, as well as the absence of information on environmental impact.
The representative has said that the Maya Train will generate profits for the southeast of the country and must be completed by 2023.
In total, the government estimates that the work costs 281 billion pesos, already with the sum of public and private investment.
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