Auditor finds ‘erratic conduct’ in spending during Peña Nieto’s final year

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November 1, 2019

A Toluca rail car: auditors have found spending irregularities.

The Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) has detected “erratic and discretional” conduct in the use of public resources in the final year of the government of former president Enrique Peña Nieto.

In a report submitted to the lower house of Congress on Thursday, the ASF said that 60% of all budget funds approved by lawmakers in 2018 were reassigned without proper justification. The total amount of funds in question is 3.62 trillion pesos (US $189.5 billion).

“In the stages of exercise and control [of budget funds], an erratic and discretional tendency was detected,” the ASF said, explaining that spending was not “equal or similar” to that approved by lawmakers.

The ASF found irregularities in spending on a number of infrastructure projects including the canceled Mexico City airport, the unfinished Mexico City-Toluca train and the new Guadalajara train.

Just under 1.6 billion pesos (US $83.5 million) paid to airport contractors was questioned by the ASF as was 272.2 million pesos spent on the Mexico City-Toluca train.

Among the irregularities detected in spending on the latter project were improper and duplicate payments and the adjustment of costs that had been agreed to with contractors.

Spending of 315.4 million pesos on the Guadalajara train, including payments for unforeseen costs, was flagged as questionable by the ASF.

Chief auditor David Colmenares told lawmakers that the ASF detected 933 separate cases of suspicious spending that could result in the filing of criminal complaints.

He said that spending that the ASF had never previously looked at was considered in the audit of the 2018 public accounts.

That included an inspection of the financial records of municipal governments as well as those of all 31 states and Mexico City in order to establish how they used federal resources.

The ASF said the use of 28.86 billion pesos (US $1.5 billion) by state and municipal governments needs to be clarified.

The ASF also reported that ISSSTE, the State Workers’ Social Security Institute, recorded a loss of 3.98 billion pesos in 2018 and that the government-owned National Lottery was running a deficit of 6.1 billion pesos at the end of last year.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

400 pilots expected for RC planes event in Coahuila

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Cody Copeland

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November 1, 2019

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RC planes will take to the skies above Torreón in November.

There will be lots of small planes buzzing around the Laguna region in Coahuila next month at the 2019 Del Norte Fly Fest in Torreón.

The event is expected to bring 400 pilots of radio-controlled (RC) airplanes and 2,500 invited guests.

State tourism undersecretary María Eugenia Villarreal Abisaíd said that the event will be a big economic boost for the city, filling around 800 hotel rooms per night.

“We’re very happy to have this event,” she said. “It’s the second year we’ve done it. It’s a specialized, private event, but we’re looking to open it up to the general public in 2020.”

The Fly Fest will bring RC pilots from Coahuila and 10 other states as well as a special guest from the United States.

Freestyle world champion Jase Dussia from Michigan will participate in the freestyle competition, which will be accompanied by music and judged on the artistic and technical skills the pilots can display in a period of four minutes.

The Fly Fest will take place on November 15-17 in the municipality of Matamoros, part of the Torreón metropolitan area.

Sources: La Prensa de Monclova (sp), El Siglo de Torreón (sp)

Architect’s personal art collection on display in Mexico City

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Cody Copeland

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November 1, 2019

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The Altar Shelf displays Barragán's personal art collection. — Design of the Altar Shelf draws on Barragán's signature geometric style.

The personal art collection of eminent Mexican architect Luis Barragán is on display at his house in Mexico City.

Designed with the architect’s signature geometric style in mind, the temporary shelves used to display the pieces were created by local design studios Sala Hars and AGO Projects.

Called the Altar Shelf, the construction is a symmetrical, four-sided piece meant to display Barragán’s collection of paintings, statues and artifacts from all angles.

“Our intention was to create a setting that allows the viewer at all times, and from all angles, to see the pieces from sides that have never been accessible to the public, providing a new reading of the work as a constellation.”

Drawing on forms Barragán himself used in his work, the pyramidal Altar Shelf “pays subtle homage to the architect’s broad ideas and inspirations — from the famous floating stair to the religious imagery within the house.”

The curation of the pieces follows no particular order, contrasting with the rigid, geometrical formation of the display apparatus. Other paintings and sculptures are set along the walls surrounding the Altar Shelf.

Barragán was born in 1902 in Guadalajara. His work focused on bright, bold colors and their interplay with geometry and light. A devout Catholic, his beliefs are reflected in the religious imagery adorning his house.

He completed his home and studio in 1948, and in 1980 he was awarded architecture’s most coveted trophy, the Pritzker Prize. The home-studio has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004.

It is just one of many structures the architect designed in Mexico City, along with the Casa Gilardi, with its walls of striking primary colors, the pastel pink Casa Prieto López and the gold-paneled chapel at the Capuchinas Sacramentarias convent.

The installation is part of an exhibition called Emissaries for Things Abandoned by Gods, which features work by contemporary artists from all over the world in other rooms of the house. It began in September and runs until December 15.

The house is located at Gral. Francisco Ramírez 12-14, Ampliación Daniel Garza.

Source: Dezeen (en)

Day of the Dead celebrations a good boost for tourism

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Cody Copeland

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November 1, 2019

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day of the dead skeletons — Tourists like them.

Tourism for the Day of the Dead festivities is expected to provide a significant economic boom this weekend.

Hotels are currently reporting 75.8% occupancy rates nationwide, and the tourism sector is expected to see an influx of almost 2 billion pesos (US $104 million).

Federal Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco said he anticipates 829,000 Mexican citizens will travel for Day of the Dead.

He added that Mexico City hotels should see 87.5% occupancy thanks to 85,000 tourists visiting the nation’s capital, bringing 85.6 million pesos (US $4.5 million) to the city’s accommodations sector.

Mexico City has the highest number of hotel reservations in the country for the Day of the Dead weekend, according to Booking.com.

“The Day of the Dead celebration has become a huge opportunity for people to get away and live the experience in other parts of the country, without being an official holiday,” said Ezequiel Rubín, country manager at the travel website Despegar.com.

Bacalar, Quintana Roo, Taxco, Guerrero, Tequisquiapan, Querétaro and Valle de Bravo, in Mexico State are some of the Pueblos Mágicos (Magical Towns) with the most reservations in the country.

In Michoacán, Morelia, Pátzcuaro and Uruapan have reported 100% hotel occupancy rates, according to state Tourism Secretary Claudia Chávez López. She said the Noche de Ánimas (Night of Souls) festival is expected to bring 200,000 foreign and domestic tourists to the Lake Pátzcuaro region.

She said hotels are expected to be full despite the state’s high levels of insecurity.

Tourist destinations in Guerrero have reported 90% occupancy rates due to an expected 300,000 visitors between Friday and Sunday.

State tourism undersecretary Noé Peralta Herrera said the anticipated number of visitors could easily be surpassed since many have vacation homes, rent condos or stay with friends and family who live in the state.

“Although we don’t officially have an exact figure for how many people will stay at their own properties, rent rooms on mobile applications or stay with family or friends, the economic influx they will generate is also very important for thousands of families who directly or indirectly depend on the tourism industry in Acapulco, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo and Taxco,” Peralta said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Textile firm leaves Mexico for greener (cheaper) pastures

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Cody Copeland

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November 1, 2019

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Canadian textile giant Gildan Activewear has announced that it will move its Mexico operations to countries where it can take advantage of cheaper production costs.

The move will cost 1,700 jobs in Mexico.

The company will relocate its manufacturing to cheaper production centers in Central America and the Caribbean. It is also building a large complex in Bangladesh to meet demand for the Chinese and European markets.

“Upon analyzing our future cost structure, we feel that we can lower costs significantly by limiting our facilities,” CEO Glenn Chamandy told analysts.

Mexico has seen its competitive manufacturing capacity eroded after a series of threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, the Bloomberg news agency reported.

However, Mexico has made a strong effort to focus on more sophisticated operations in recent years, becoming an important production center for the automotive industry and attracting investment in the aviation sector.

Based in Montreal, Gildan Activewear created a global textile production chain that includes everything from thread to ready-to-wear clothing, which allowed it to compete with other industry giants like Fruit of the Loom and Hanes.

The company’s two facilities in Mexico came with its acquisition of Alstyle Apparel, a U.S. company that, like Gildan, sold personalized shirts and sweaters.

The company currently sees growing opportunities in the private brands market, as retailers look for their own proprietary brands, according to experts.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Morgues contain more than 30,000 unidentified, unclaimed bodies

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MND Staff

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November 1, 2019

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Thousands of bodies and no one knows who they are.

There are more than 30,000 unclaimed and unidentified bodies as well as an unknown number of skeletal remains in Mexico’s morgues, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said on Thursday.

There is “a crisis in the area of forensic identification,” the commission said, because morgues lack the resources, staff and equipment to properly examine the bodies they receive.

High homicide numbers during the past decade have contributed to the accumulation of the huge number of corpses. Many were found in hidden graves used by criminal organizations to dispose of the bodies of their victims.

Federal human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas said in February that Mexico is an “enormous hidden grave.”

The CNDH said that albums of photographs should be compiled when hidden graves are excavated in order to document clothing and other items that could aid in the identification of bodies.

Overcrowding at morgues has forced authorities in several cities to use refrigerated trailer containers to store unidentified bodies.

One trailer containing 157 bodies was left on a property on the outskirts of Guadalajara, Jalisco, last year, drawing the ire of local residents who complained of fetid odors. The state’s forensics chief was fired by then governor Jorge Sandoval Díaz over the case.

The Guadalajara morgue has left some unidentified bodies to decompose for as long as two years before autopsies were carried out. Others have buried corpses in common graves but some have faced criticism because they didn’t collect tissue samples first.

Adriana Michelle Álvarez Orozco, a 16-year-old who disappeared in Jalisco in November 2017, was left in the Lagos de Moreno morgue in Jalisco for almost two years without being identified.

Family members searched for the girl since her disappearance but had no luck finding her until October 12 when a woman, the mother of one of Álvarez’s friends, recognized her in a photo held by Jalisco authorities. The girl’s mother was notified and finally able to recover her body.

The National Search Commission said in January that there are 40,180 missing people in Mexico. The highest profile missing persons cases is the 2014 disappearance of 43 teaching students in Iguala, Guerrero.

The federal government established a truth commission to conduct a new investigation into the case and has carried out extensive search operations but Encinas said on the fifth anniversary of the students’ disappearance that there had been no “positive findings.”

Source: The Associated Press (sp)

INAH makes another unsuccessful bid to stop antiquities auction

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MND Staff

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October 31, 2019

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Three of the pieces that were sold by auction Wednesday in Paris.

Another auction of pre-Hispanic artifacts went ahead in Paris, France, on Wednesday despite the objections of the Mexican government.

Auction house Sotheby’s put 74 pieces on the block and 44 were sold for a combined total of 1.78 million euros (US $2 million).

Archaeological experts with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) determined that 57 pieces, described as “Pre-Columbian treasures from an important French collection,” were from Mexico.

Of that number, 35 were deemed to be genuine pre-Hispanic artifacts of the Mayan, Teotihuacán, Zapotec, Olmec and Mexica cultures while 22 were assessed as recently manufactured fakes.

INAH became aware of the auction on October 8 and immediately filed a complaint with the federal Attorney General’s Office and informed the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and Interpol.

However, the efforts to stop the auction and have the Mexican artifacts repatriated ultimately failed.

“The auction took place like the others,” said INAH chief Diego Prieto. “France has a legal framework that isn’t favorable to the recovery of this heritage.”

An Olmec perforator made out of jade yielded the highest price at yesterday’s auction, selling for $209,000. A stone Olmec mask was bought for $181,000 while two Teotihuacán masks went for $153,000 each.

A terracotta ornament featuring five heads and said to originate from Veracruz sold for $125,000 while a Mayan vase went for $111,500.

Sotheby’s auction followed one held by Millon auction house in Paris in September at which 120 supposedly pre-Hispanic artifacts went under the hammer. INAH has also detected that pre-Hispanic relics are hawked on e-commerce sites and social media platforms such as Facebook.

Prieto told the newspaper La Jornada that the Mexican government will continue to speak to French authorities with a view to recovering objects that it says rightfully belong in Mexico and never should have left the country.

He said the government will do what it can to strengthen international treaties and agreements that aim to stop the illicit trade of cultural artifacts.

Prieto said that INAH has managed to recover artifacts from Italy, Germany and the United States and hopes to recover an additional 80 objects before the end of the year.

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

Engine maker Cummins prepares to shift operations to Mexico

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Cody Copeland

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October 31, 2019

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Engine manufacturer Cummins is preparing to move more production to Mexico.

United States automotive manufacturer Cummins has confirmed that it will move some of its operations from China, India and Brazil to Mexico.

The decision was made to meet stipulations in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and to respond to tariffs recently imposed by the United States.

Cummins Latin America vice president Ignacio García said that once the USMCA enters into force, the heavy transport industry will be obliged to increase its regional content from 62% to 75% over a seven-year period.

This stipulation is forcing supply companies to move operations currently in China and other countries outside of North America to within the treaty’s signatory nations.

García said the process will also include moving some production from the United States to Mexico, such as its filters division, for which Mexico is seen as more productive than its neighbor to the north.

“We’re moving lines of filtration production from the U.S. to Mexico and expanding the plant in Ciudad Juárez in order to meet demand for diesel fuel injection in the Americas,” said García. “The tariffs levied by the U.S. on Europe and China are helping this process; it makes companies look to Mexico as a place where they can relocate production lines to supply the U.S. market.”

“We’re currently at 62% regional content, but this will rise to 75%. Looking at the constituent parts, there are the smelting plants in Brazil and Germany, steel crankshafts in Brazil, copper radiators from China, and fuel components that come from India, and we’re analyzing all those products.”

The U.S. company already has two plants in Mexico, one in Ciudad Juárez and the other in San Luis Potosí. Its operations in Mexico are primarily involved in refurbishing, while its U.S. plants produce new motors.

However, a new niche for Cummins in Mexico is the production of filters and fuel systems for the whole world. It also has plants for fuel injection gas treatment, crankshafts and high-powered engines.

“We have to maximize the potential of these plants,” said García. He stated that the demand in China will continue to rise, but it is necessary to increase regional production in North America.

“We have seven years from the beginning of the USMCA. There’s still time, but we have worked with companies in China, India and Brazil in order to begin to understand how to open plants in Mexico and the U.S. and move product.”

Source: El Economista (sp)

Tijuana pumping stations upgrade to stop cross-border pollution

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MND Staff

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October 31, 2019

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Wastewater discharge from Punta Bandera. — Wastewater discharge from Punta Bandera, bound for the ocean.

The federal government has announced that it will repair five pumping stations in Tijuana to prevent cross-border sewage spills that have angered communities in the San Diego area.

The Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) said that Mexico and the United States are engaged in talks to sign a bilateral agreement intended to mitigate the problems of sewage flows affecting and even closing beaches on the U.S. coast.

Both countries will commit resources to address the issue, the SRE said.

Last year, the local governments of Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and the Port of San Diego sued the United States section of the International Boundary and Water Commission for failing to stop sewage from Tijuana flowing into the Pacific Ocean north of the border via the Tijuana river.

Sewage pollution has forced the closure of beaches on both sides of the border on several occasions.

The SRE announcement came two days after President López Obrador said the government would invest 200 million pesos (US $10.4 million) to build new treatment plants in Tijuana.

“An agreement was reached to treat water in Tijuana; it’s between the two countries. Treatment plants will be installed,” he told reporters at his morning press conference on Monday.

“The government of the United States is contributing half and we’re contributing the other half,” López Obrador said without offering further details.

José Carmelo Zavala, director of the non-profit Center for Environmental Innovation and Management in Tijuana, said he expected that the Punta Bandera treatment plant, which dumps huge quantities of sewage into the Pacific Ocean, will be taken out of service once new treatment plants are built.

“. . . Punta Bandera hasn’t really been working since the ’80s, it isn’t maintained, it overflows . . . we really need another wastewater treatment plant there,” he said.

Zavala added that any new plant should send treated water to Valle de Guadalupe via aqueduct for reuse.

Source: The Associated Press (sp), El Imparcial (sp), Unimexicali (sp)

University’s mega-altar dedicated to revolutionary Emiliano Zapata

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Cody Copeland

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October 31, 2019

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An altar from last year's exhibition at UNAM.

This year’s Day of the Dead mega-altar organized by the National Autonomous University (UNAM) will be dedicated to infamous Revolutionary War hero Emiliano Zapata.

The 22nd edition of UNAM’s mega-altar will pay tribute to the legendary “Commander of the South” on the 100th anniversary of his death.

As happens every year, all university departments will participate in the mega-altar, each school creating its own smaller altar to contribute to the overall display.

The altars will be judged by a team comprised of specialists from the School of Art and Design and the Institute of Aesthetic Research.

For the first time in the altar’s history, the public will also be able to vote on their favorite altars. The top three will end up on the judges’ shortlist.

Megaofrenda de la UNAM en el Espacio escultórico | Así se puso

Watch this video on YouTube

There will also be photography and skull decorating competitions.

The UNAM mega-altar has been a Mexico City tradition since 1997.

The mega-altar will be on display in the old university neighborhood in Mexico City’s historic center, in the Plaza de Santo Domingo, from November 1-3, from 10:00am-11:00pm. Admission is free.

Source: Chilango (sp)