Thursday, October 3, 2024

Subcontractors victims of quake reconstruction fraud in Oaxaca

A México state construction company will be investigated for fraud after allegedly failing to pay 20 subcontractors for reconstruction work on earthquake-damaged schools in Oaxaca.

The Oaxaca attorney general’s office said that Grupo Salcedo was paid about 79 million pesos (US $4 million) to carry out repairs at schools in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region, which bore the brunt of the devastating 8.2-magnitude earthquake on September 7, 2017.

The subcontractors claim that everything was going well until November last year when Grupo Salcedo stopped paying them even though the work they were doing was between 70% and 90% complete.

“. . . We put our capital [into the projects] in order to deliver the work and to carry out our duty to the children of Oaxaca and now this company . . . that arrived on the isthmus and contracted us is refusing to pay us. It left and we don’t know anything,” said Carlos Vásquez Rasgado, an architect and builder in Juchitán.

According to the subcontractors, Grupo Salcedo promised to pay all outstanding debts by March 6.

The affected parties now claim that the Oaxaca Institute for Educational Infrastructure Construction (Iocifed) has contracted outside companies to complete the work but vow they won’t allow that to happen.

The subcontractors said they are prepared to blockade schools and highways in order to stop other companies from continuing the work they started.

Source: Milenio (sp), La Jornada (sp) 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Pesos with US dollars

Mexico received more than US $6 billion in remittances in August

0
The weakness of the peso against the dollar make August an ideal time for Mexicans working in the U.S. to send money home.
A Mexican army patrol vehicle in Chiapas

6 migrants killed by Mexican soldiers in Chiapas

4
A vehicle carrying the migrants was fired on by soldiers after it evaded them while on patrol north of Tapachula, according to the Army.
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum in a white Oxford shirt and black pants, walking down a street in Guerrero, Mexico, with other government functionaries, including several in military fatigues.

Residents plead with Sheinbaum for help in flooded Acapulco

0
Mexico's new president Claudia Sheinbaum made her first official visit to a disaster zone Wednesday, arriving in Acapulco to assess storm damage from Hurricane John.