President López Obrador charged today that the national disaster fund, Fonden, has been a “bottomless barrel of money” for which emergencies were invented in order to tap into the funds.

He explained that under a state of emergency purchases made by the government forego the usual bidding process, creating “a constellation of firms around Fonden that sold everything . . . all managed by the Interior Secretariat, billions of pesos . . . ”

López Obrador included sargassum invasions among the phony emergencies, an issue he believes is not “very serious.”

The government of Quintana Roo and the opposition National Action Party have demanded funds from Fonden be used for a program to combat the sargassum.

” . . . I did not like the program because it was more of the same. Don’t we have a very professional organization like the navy to perform professional studies? Why shouldn’t it be in charge of this program?”

He offered no evidence to demonstrate corruption at Fonden and no other examples of fabricated emergencies.

Source: Milenio (sp)