“What the 2026 budget project reflects is that the fight against corruption is not a priority. In reality, the general trend of the budget allocated to anti-corruption institutions is going downwards,” explains Anaid García Tobón, specialist at Fundar, Civil Association Analysis and Research Center.
Budget for corruption in disguise
The federal government released a new design for the budget aimed at combating these crimes, with Annex 30 called “Resources for the Prevention, detection, investigation and punishment of acts of corruption”, to which 16 agencies were incorporated, but without clarity that the money allocated is actually to stop this crime.
This Annex now includes the National Defense, Navy, Environment, Culture, Secretariat of Infrastructure, Environment, Culture, Labor and Social Security, in addition to IMSS and ISSSTE, but with ambiguous projects that are not related.
For example, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development “planned” to combat corruption by “promoting the sustainability of fishing resources”; The Environment Ministry will have 26.7 million pesos from this annex that will be used to “ensure the effective functioning of the National Climate Change System,” while the Ministry of Culture plans to dedicate 58.4 million pesos of this item for a strategy to “strengthen Mexico’s positioning as a cultural reference.”
While internal communication and dissemination strategies are proposed with this budget, for example the Women’s Secretariat will allocate it to “Prepare and disseminate studies, research, diagnoses and proposals with a gender perspective”; The IMSS proposed “socializing the Code of Ethics of the Federal Public Administration,” while the Ministry of Labor contemplates it for “dissemination and constant training.”
In contrast to this allocation of resources without a clear focus on the fight against corruption, the institutions with specialized tasks in stopping the diversion of resources, preventing opacity, impunity, and supervising the proper use of public money, will be defunded from the budget.
The Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) will have a 4.58% reduction in its spending; the Prosecutor’s Office specialized in Combating Corruption, 3.21% and the Administrative Justice Court (TSJA) 1.82%.
The Executive Secretariat of the National Anti-Corruption System, which articulates all policy in this matter, will suffer a 3.13% cut in its designated budget.
The Anti-Corruption and Good Government Secretariat, which was previously the Secretariat of Public Function (SFP) and which has a large number of functions, especially when adding those of defunct organizations such as the INAI, presents a reduction of 2.11% of its budget.
It is proposed to assign around two million pesos a month to carry out the tasks that the INAI carried out before its extinction, says the Fundar specialist. “They gave the INAI an average of 1,000 million pesos annually, and now it is very contrasting that they are only giving it 25 million pesos,” he says.
It is scandalous that he has no resources. The regressivity of the reform of the General Transparency Law added to this 98% budget reduction, since what it will generate is that there will not be enough resources or adequate personnel to be able to fulfill these functions of transparency and access to information.
Anaid García Tobón, Fundar specialist.
The Fundar specialist insists that it is proven that the most effective way to combat corruption is transparency and closing the way to opacity, and neither in the law nor in the budget is there any desire to prevent deviations and monitor the proper use of public resources.
