The Best Interest, understood as a set of actions and processes that constitute a value judgment before any benefit that guarantees an integral development that includes material and affective conditions, we can serve here, by extension, around the much cited case of the Citigroup Cultural Heritage Banamex.
Much has been said about the second sale of this large collection and its invaluable cost, which, as Ximena Apisdorf points out, is not invaluable, on the contrary, and that is precisely where its importance as a collection lies. At this time, as this is confidential information, we do not know the amount of the assessment. For what it’s worth, 20 years ago, the institution itself valued the collection at $ 64.5 million. For now, the priceless thing helps us to question its eventual acquisition by the government, as its administration has museums without toilet paper.
Twenty years ago, after the National Banking and Securities Commission, the Federal Competition Commission and the Ministry of Finance approved that first transaction, the bylaws of the financial group were amended, by agreement with the cultural authorities, to extend 15 to 180 working days. , the preferential right so that the government can acquire the said cultural heritage. That is, the State has the right to both, but not the economic resources to acquire this inheritance. Considering the conditions in which the museum facilities are currently, they do not even have to buy antibacterial gel in their intended post-pandemic reopening. The budget cuts to the Ministry of Culture and the institutes responsible for ensuring the preservation of this particular heritage; the elimination of Trusts, the cancellation of international exhibitions and the concentration of cultural policy.
What makes us think it would be better off in the hands of the government? The gallant quadroteistic nationalism? The attacks of idealism of a ruling class, if not clumsy, incompetent? Or the words of Secretary of State Ebrard, who 20 years ago said it was a public policy mistake to allow the interests of investors to triumph over the country’s historical and cultural heritage. He asked the Executive to condition the sale and separate cultural property from it: “since the president has the tools to do so.” He said.
Let’s start with the latter, as the now Chancellor said in August 2001, which conditioned sales and separated cultural assets. The bank said the sale is not partial, but total, that they will not separate the collection. But one thing is what the bank wants, another that can be reached in a negotiation when the sale goes through state customs. Here it will be necessary to overcome the speech of the Fobaproa, the small vision of the government, and to face the deal with a vision of the state.
Then try to sign with the new owners the agreement of 20 years ago to keep the collection intact and in the country. Submit the said agreement to the bank’s articles of association and also establish the preferential right in exposures. Here comes the hardest. Answer the question: Why do you want a collection of this nature? If the government has proven that it is a failure in the maintenance and preservation of heritage. Let’s see ourselves in the mirror of the embodegada Collection Payment in Kind. So why not think of a selection of heritage that may be capable, with the advice of a committee of experts under the criteria of historical, artistic and cultural relevance.
Examine the feasibility of a long-term fiscal strategy, by the aforementioned committee, and the support of entrepreneurs wishing to participate in an institutional program, based on the taxes generated by the purchase and sale of the bank, whose purpose is to to start acquiring said goods on the basis of the payment of tax in the future. Or start buying only the goods that are not protected by law. If the problem is nationalism.
In 2003, President Fox’s government planned to hand over the Old Archbishop’s Palace to the Archdiocese to create a museum of sacred art. The political debate led the government to reconsider, and legislators carried out a profound reform of the General National Assets Act to ensure that no property that was ecclesiastical property ceased to be under the control of the Nation. Connect the criterion with the Law of Religious Associations and Public Worship, which stipulates that these types of associations may only use assets of the Nation exclusively for religious purposes.
The reflection is that the Mexican state, continental leader in cultural heritage, cannot maintain said heritage in optimal conditions. It is a state that is jealous of the church and private initiative. What good is it for us to belong to the people if they are in a pitiful state? It is necessary to think of shared preservation, to put the highest importance of the collection first. Difficult, I know. The father is furiously nationalistic and the mother happily neoliberal. We are no longer talking about a society of coexistence with the church.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx