Do you know how much the construction of the Mayan Train will ultimately cost? The question is not idle or anti-4T, it is convenient. Based on available public information, at the end of 2025 it will require the spectacular figure of 590,000 million pesos, 293% more than what was estimated at the beginning of the previous six-year term (about 150,000 million pesos) and, eventually, the amount will be higher.
To date, there are those who placidly celebrate that a part of the route is already in service. “Yes it was possible. Yes, it was possible”, one shouts with overflowing pleasure without seeing the difficulties it is causing for public finances due to the need to continue injecting resources to complete the work (necessary, but not urgent).
It is a fact that the railway project that was born to offer cargo and passenger services is not transparent like the desirable “glass box”, in terms of infrastructure development, nor does it stand out on the federal government’s Open Data website, which which limits citizens from knowing the details of the great work (in addition, its total physical progress is unclear).
Two examples of what was written: the information related to the registration in the portfolio of investment projects of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), dated 2020, was withdrawn and on the CompraNet platform it can be seen that the military company Tren Maya disseminates the data of only three direct awards in 2024 (one of them to Creatividad y Espectáculos, CREA, a subsidiary of CIE, for the comprehensive service to design, produce, supply and install stands for the railway project this year in three international tourism fairs. Eventually the relationship will extend to Fitur 2025, in Madrid).
On the other hand, in the National Transparency Platform (of the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data, INAI, soon to disappear) it can be seen in a 127-page document that there is one more direct assignment: the past June 28, the military company awarded SITT Engineering and Projects a contract for 41.8 million pesos to update the demand study, the financial break-even point study, the profitability study and the analysis study cost benefit.
These works are fundamental to justify the relevance of the historic public investment.
“The parties agree that the contract will be valid from July 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025,” it was detailed.
Among the questions that arise in this case is why said information does not appear in the proactive information section of the parastatal Tren Maya or in CompraNet.
Additionally, there are other keyless locks. The signed contract states that the parties agree that the information exchanged in accordance with the provisions of the instrument “will be treated confidentially”, being used exclusively to achieve the objective and may not be disseminated to third parties.
Thus, if the transparency platform did not exist, it would simply not be known now about this direct award to SITT Engineering and Project.
Given the uncertainty and disagreement generated on the issue of elimination of autonomous bodies, on November 12, the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, sought to sow certainty and assured that said platform “will not disappear and its functions will be part of the new Anti-Corruption Secretariat and Good Government, which will derive from the transformation of the current Secretariat of Public Function (SFP), whose owner is Raquel Buenrostro Sánchez.”
You have to trust, of course, because the Mayan Train project that she seeks to complete in her management is a world of information and because she will also develop passenger trains that must be in a “glass box.”
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By the way: There are those who cannot stand their eagerness to be the protagonist and are already proclaiming that they know details of the first actions to be promoted by the Secretary of Tourism, Josefina Rodríguez: the international promotion campaign and the “excellent” crisis management strategy that will be implemented . No matter how much we try to take care of the growing dependence, it seems that the allies are no longer allies in order to suit their immediate interests.
