This year, the Armed Forces and the National Guard have the second largest public administration budget: 204,683 million 476,437 pesos.
“For several years they have been allocated large amounts of money. For 2022, considering the budget of the Ministry of Citizen Security, the Navy, the National Guard and the Ministry of National Defense, it is more than 230,000 million pesos. It is the second highest budget of the administration, more than the pension for the elderly, that is the revelation that militarization has for this administration, that without considering the direct or indirect management of budgets of other institutions”, states Genaro Ahumada, researcher of the organization Cause in Common.
Mariana Campos, coordinator of the Public Expenditure and Accountability Program of the organization México Evalúa, explains that while in 2014 the budget given to civil institutions was similar to that allocated to the military, today the latter receive more millions of pesos, which that makes it clear where the priority is.
“Money has been privileged to military instances over civilian instances… In 2014 the military instances (Sedena, Semar and National Guard) and non-military instances (FGR, SSPyPC and Government) had the same budget. This has been taking off, in 2015 it took off in favor of the military, it has become a very important gap since 2019 where military instances had a budget of 155,000 million pesos, while civilians had 97,000. In 2022, 204,000 million were approved for the military and 55,000 for civilians, ”he adds.
