Andrea Becerril
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday February 27, 2023, p. 16
The privatization of Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México continues to have an impact on public finances, since since the extinction of this public company in 2001, the federal government had to assume the cost of the liquidation process of the organization and the payment of the railway retirees who by the end of 2022 they totaled close to 20 billion pesos, with an annual outlay of more than 2.5 billion pesos for the payment of their pensions.
According to actuarial studies, it is projected that this obligation of the federal government to allocate budgetary resources to cover the pensions of the railroad union will end until 2084. It is detailed in a study that the Institute to Return the Stolen to the People (INDEP), current liquidator of Ferronales, sent it to the Senate of the Republic, carried out the analysis. It details that the deficit of the Ferronales Trust is close to 25 billion pesos.
In the second semester of 2022, 1,243,500,000 pesos were allocated for the payment of pensions and benefits to 18,931 retirees, which are funded with budgetary resources that the National Railways of Mexico in Liquidation body requests annually through the Secretary of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation, from Branch 19.
In addition to this, there is an accumulation of labor lawsuits, since since the disincorporation of the state-owned company, 34,469 have filed a claim for pensions, back wages and other benefits for workers who were left without a job. Of these, 30,480 were resolved, which is just over 88 percent.
However, the report specifies that 3,988 labor lawsuits are still in litigation, of which 997 are considered that the agency will lose them and are equivalent to the payment of 8,637 million pesos, for which reason they were already included in the statements. financial.
It is detailed that the amount of the firm condemnatory awards went from one thousand 47 million, 923 thousand pesos to one thousand 88 million 732 thousand pesos from June to December 2022, due to new labor sentences, in addition to the update of lost wages, retirement pensions and conclusion of lawsuits by prescription.
494 new trustee retirees were incorporated and adjustments were made to 1,676 pensions, from 2015 to date and in the second half of 2022, 50 labor lawsuits were resolved that involved 138 actors and whose spending amounted to 287 million pesos.
The INDEP report also details that the FNML also faces civil, commercial and even criminal lawsuits, in the latter as the complaining party.
In addition, FNML faces remedying environmental damage in places where the former parastatal operated. In one of them, that of Escárcega Campeche, the obligation was transferred to Fonatur Tren Maya.
With regard to permanent assets, FNML managed to sell 124 properties in the second semester, with a value of 371 million pesos.
The term to complete the disincorporation of Ferrocarriles Nacionales expires on December 31 of this year, although the obligations with retirees will remain.
