The objective, as ordered by Congress, is that these remnants be allocated by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) to attend to natural disasters, as well as to cover pending obligations.
However, to date there are still pending reconciliations and last January an external auditor was hired to audit the financial statements of the Trust, since they will be the basis for presenting the financial and equity situation of the Fonden “and they are one of the requirements to continue with the formalization” of the termination agreement.
In addition, as reported on May 18, 2022, in the ordinary session of the Technical Committee of the FONDEN Trust, 24 amparo lawsuits are still pending, in which a final ruling is expected in five months, “depending, to a large extent, on , of the workload of the courts”.
In that same session, it was realized that although some works had already been authorized under the Fonden, 70 financial closures of authorized works were carried out, nine from the National Water Commission, 28 from the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT), one from the Urban Planning Secretariat, 22 from the Public Education Secretariat (SEP), nine from the National Aquaculture Commission and one from the Health Secretariat.
Those works that had been considered necessary were no longer carried out “which resulted in the release of 392,950.5 thousand pesos that will no longer be necessary to apply them, which is why the committed resources are reduced.”
This Thursday, David Colmenares made to the ASF Surveillance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies the first delivery of Individual Reports of the Superior Audit of the Public Account 2021, which includes the compliance audit carried out on the Ministry of Finance to verify that the process of extinction of the Fonden be carried out in accordance with the law.
The audit reviewed that during the 2021 financial year, 3,377,524 million pesos were exercised, but the trustee Banobras reported that its remainder was 12,589,011.8 million pesos.
The ASF detected differences in what was recorded in various spending sectors, and a remainder to exercise of 15,899,172.5 million pesos, that is, a difference of 3,569,235.2 million pesos.
Although the trustee reported that the database delivered to the ASF did not consider some movements such as refunds, reclassifications and closed events, the Audit concluded that there was no documentary evidence to prove these amounts, so it did not consider the observation addressed.
As part of the reviews, the ASF selected a sample of 3 events that occurred in the states of Guerrero due to severe rains that occurred on September 14, 2013 and the earthquake of September 7, 2017 in Oaxaca to verify the application of resources. In both cases, figures were still in the reconciliation stage.
The proposal to disappear the trusts will not remove the support, according to AMLO
For all these reasons, the ASF recommended carrying out the conciliations as a previous step to the extinction of the Fonden.
Meanwhile, the Budget Policy and Control Unit of the SHCP instructed the trustee BANOBRAS to carry out reconciliations prior to the termination of the Fonden “and take the pertinent steps to integrate the report on the rights and obligations pending to be demanded or fulfilled at the time of the concentration of resources to the Tesofe”.
The Unit reported to the ASF that it will be until the concentration of all the resources to the Tesofe is carried out and the procedure for the cancellation of the bank account and respective investment contracts is carried out, BANOBRAS will prepare and present the final report of the existing commitments of the Fonden at the time of its extinction.
