They investigate fraud to the Issste with inflated pensions

Gustavo Castillo Garcia and Angeles Cruz

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday June 5, 2022, p. 3

The Specialized Prosecutor for the Fight against Corruption (Femcc) and the Institute of Security and Social Services of State Workers (Issste) have detected hundreds of cases in which employees of the agency colluded with law firms and members of Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration to pay pensions that exceed between 17 and 175 percent of the amount to which those who worked for the federal government are legally entitled.

The patrimonial damage to the Issste is considered multimillionaire. Currently, by refusing to pay the awards that allow the collection of pensions with illicit amounts, the institute was insured bank accounts totaling 800 million pesos. To this is added that there is no quantification of retirees who, since 2013 or before, receive resources that do not correspond to their base salary, nor how many litigations are in progress.

In the review of the public account of 2018, the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) detected the existence of irregular pensions obtained by people who lived in Tamaulipas, Mexico City, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Baja California, Durango, Morelos, Chiapas and one in the United States.

In this context, the Femcc requested on May 17 before control judges based in Coahuila, an initial hearing and the imputation of those involved in more than 40 files of hundreds of matters detected as fraud to the Issste through the processing of pensions. for illegal amounts.

Officials of the Judicial Power of the Federation (PJF) revealed that a control judge opened the investigation folder and initiated the criminal process 53/2022, after the body of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) confirmed based on in the complaint filed by the Issste.

The FGR accuses several Issste officials of failing to provide a proper defense to the agency against more than 40 labor lawsuits processed from 2013 to 2018 before Special Board number 42, which is part of the Federal Board of Conciliation and Arbitration.

According to the information obtained, the Federal Public Ministry discovered that groups of lawyers have established illegal alliances with Issste employees so that they do not diligently attend to labor disputes and, in combination with officials of the Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, dictate contrary sentences. to the body, in such a way that unassailable awards are issued and oblige the institute to pay the pensions of the beneficiaries for life, who, in turn, deliver to the litigants a percentage of the resources they obtain and with this they oil the network of corruption.

Jurisprudence

In April 2016, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) issued a jurisprudence and determined that the payment of the guaranteed compensation concept should not be included in the calculation of the pension.

In 2021, the maximum to which an Issste pensioner could be entitled was 28,866 pesos.

Last year, the director of the institute, Luis Antonio Ramírez Pineda, reported that the organization was assigned in the Federation Expenditure Budget more than 263 billion pesos for the payment of pensions, and with this this benefit was guaranteed for more than one million 230 thousand beneficiaries.

In 2018, the ASF discovered that in only 10 cases the global retirement payment for these pensions was 4,806,600 pesos, when an amount of 2,916,900 pesos should have been covered.

The problem is amplified when considering that the payments of these pensions must be made for life for those who have benefited.

The Issste was consulted about this case, but the official response was: The matter is under investigation at the FGR, due to confidentiality agreements, it is not possible to give any information.

Government and institute sources pointed out that not surprising that there is this problem with the payment of pensions for amounts higher than those allowed by law. The reasons, they explained, are several, among them that half of the lawsuits that exist against the agency have to do with the resources paid to retired workers.

For several years, they said, it has been known of the existence of law firms that are dedicated to convincing retirees and pensioners to file lawsuits in order to increase their pensions with various arguments.

The cases are lost in the labor courts due to lack of personnel to give them prompt follow-up and it is possible that there is an issue of corruptionindicated the officials interviewed.

Other causes have been recognized by the body itself. In the 2018 Financial and Actuarial Report, the last one that included a section on Institutional Risks and the program to deal with them, it states the existence of risk factor’s in the Judgments and petition rights regarding pensions.

It refers to the matters that are litigated in courts and on which it was identified that the follow-up of compliance with sentences is insufficient, as well as an inappropriate administration of pension files in the central and delegation archives.