Due to austerity and alleged corruption, these funds were extinguished by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. To date, no complaints about irregularities have been documented and the resources were redirected to other areas.
The National Fund for Disaster Attention (Fonden) was left without resources in 2020 and its extinction was formalized in mid-2021. This year resources were provided to deal with disasters, but there are no operating rules and after reallocations only a part was left to rebuild damaged infrastructure, according to studies by México Evalúa.
The fund for Strengthening Performance in Public Security Matters (Fortaseg) was not contemplated in the 2020 budget and has since disappeared.
Now a fund similar to the latter must be created by 2023, since the reforms approved by the Congress of the Union so that the Armed Forces carry out security tasks until 2028 included a last-minute mandate to allocate resources to finance training, equipment and strengthening of state and municipal police forces.
That reform, which modified the constitutional decree that created the National Guard, is still pending ratification in at least 17 state congresses for its entry into force. So far there are 14, but the Expenditure Budget must be approved no later than November 15.
Today a commission from the ACCM, headed by Renán Alberto Barrera, PAN member and mayor of Mérida, Yucatán, met with the Political Coordination Board (Jucopo) of the Chamber of Deputies and with the Budget Commission.
Barrera, who acted as a spokesperson, assured that the meeting with the deputies is still initial because there are doubts as to whether these security resources will go directly to states or municipalities, for which transparent operating rules were requested, clear financial formulas that allow the access to this new bag and to the amounts of branches 28 and 33, of participations to Federal Entities and Municipalities, as well as “the possibility of having a Fonden again”.
The ACCM is not “a common front of mayors against” nor is it about criticizing the past or the present, and there is a coincidence of mayors from Morena, Acción Nacional (PAN), Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), on the need for specific resources to deal with emergencies and for security, he said.
“Beyond pesos and cents, there is a shared, non-partisan need for more resources, not because we are mayors from the opposition or from the ruling party. No, it is a shared reality of all the municipal presidents of all the political parties, we have to have tools”, he added.
Mexico is strong because of its cities!??
We start on Thursday @Mx_Diputados in the company of mayors and mayors of @CapitalCities to manage and include in the 2023 Federation Expenditure Budget, more resources for municipalities on priority issues such as security. pic.twitter.com/8xhPfeegfa
– Renan Barrera (@RenanBarrera)
October 27, 2022
That is why the disappearance of the Fortaseg “has left many municipalities defenseless in which the same formula cannot be applied” to access resources in matters of public security, since the Constitution gives the municipalities that responsibility, but there are no resources. .
“What we are convinced of is that we must strengthen them because it is not worth taking away resources, disappearing them and in 5 years (when the Army withdraws) we will come to say that they do not work… obviously if there are no resources they will hardly work,” he said at a press conference .
Regarding the Fonden, the PAN member stated that there is a consensus that resources are required to attend to emergencies, whatever the fund is called.
If the rules of operation “did not guarantee transparency in the application of resources, we are willing to rethink them, not to make them disappear,” he added.
In any case, it is necessary to put locks so that cases are not repeated, he explained, “but we believe that the funds are necessary not only for the amounts, but for a process that allows them to be exercised immediately.”
“If there are natural phenomena, imagine going into the bidding process when there is a hurricane and waiting for a ruling in 45 days, if the needs are the same day the events occurred,” he said.
Although the group brings together citizens from all parties, only PAN members and one emecist attended, Juan Pablo Lemus, from Guadalajara, Jalisco, in addition to Margarita Moreno, mayor of Colima nominated by the PAN-PRI-PRD coalition, and PAN members Marco Bonilla from Chihuahua, Chihuahua, José Luis Urióstegui from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Luis Bernardo Nava from Querétaro, Eduardo Rivera, from Puebla, Puebla, and Antonio Astiazarán, from Hermosillo, Sonora.
