President López Obrador has announced the creation of a program that will offer rewards to companies that admit to having had to pay bribes in order to receive government contracts.

He asked businesses to help his administration eradicate government corruption at his morning press conference on Monday.

“Whoever comes and says, ‘I had to pay a bribe in order to get the project,’ we will protect them and give them a reward and they will always have the opportunity to participate in tenders. Help us to put an end to bribes. … No more paying money to get projects,” he said.

He added that his administration would also work with the Financial Intelligence Unit to review companies, investigate where they are from and determine whether or not they have been accused of bad conduct.

“There was so much corruption that businesses had more lawyers than engineers. They were very good litigators. They became shysters and took everything they could from the government,” he said.

AMLO, as he is commonly known, took the opportunity to remind reporters of his administration’s efforts to centralize government spending through the federal Treasury, which has allegedly led to savings of 200 billion pesos (US $10.5 billion).

“Everything is centralized. … This helps us because we’re saving a lot of money,” he said.

Source: Milenio (sp)