While doing the routine weekly exercise to define the topic that I would address in my collaboration this week in this newspaper, the federal government made the gesture of publishing in the Official Gazette of the Federation a decree by which, among other issues, “declares of public interest and national security the implementation of projects and works by the Government of Mexico associated with infrastructure of the communications, telecommunications, customs, border, hydraulic, water, environment, tourism, health, railways, railways sectors in all its modalities energy, ports, airports and those that, due to their purpose, characteristics, nature, complexity and magnitude, are considered priority and / or strategic for national development ”.
The first reflection on this instrument is that it represents an unequivocal sign that the mega-projects of public works undertaken by the administration of President López Obrador are having a crisis in terms of meeting the deadlines imposed by the head of the Executive for their respective inauguration ceremony. Well, the idea within the president’s cabinet was to apply the classic “to the wrong foot, hurry up.”
If all these projects had progress according to the original plan, there would not have been an urgent need to adopt desperate measures like this one, which among other things, again generates a regulatory framework that gives advantages to the public sector compared to any project sponsored and financed by investors. private. That is the constant of this government, changing the rules to derail, corner and generate uncertainty for private investment, while pulling out instruments such as the decree at hand with which it grants itself advantages to correct deficient planning. and execution of their own projects.
Much in the style of Donald Trump who repudiated the legal and regulatory scaffolding that had been built by governments emanating from both the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as congresses with different influences from both parties, President López Obrador decided that he no longer has the patience to listen the excuses of public servants who did not have the drive, creativity, dedication and determination to organize the tasks that were entrusted to them in the most efficient way possible and complying with all the constitutional, legal and regulatory provisions to be able to achieve in a timely manner the goals of the projects that were entrusted to them.
Of course, several well-known lawyers have already warned about the unconstitutionality of the decree in question. So very soon we will witness a new episode of pressure on the Judicial Power to prevent it from deactivating this new normative Frankestein, which also has the funny effect of allowing the executors of the projects to hide and hide their failures, and most likely acts of corruption, under the cloak of national security, a great pretext to enhance opacity in public works.
These types of events are what cause organizations such as the International Monetary Fund to warn about the risks in terms of competitiveness for the Mexican economy, and of course, for the growth potential of our country’s GDP. Until when will they realize that by these rudder strokes, by these acts by which without the slightest effort of organized public discussion the legal scaffolding that gives certainty to everyone, both authorities and private investors, or by those who are created other loquacious scaffolds outside the best international practices, investor confidence is undermined, the long-term growth capacity of our economy is affected and the well-being of Mexican families is affected?
By the way, I was thinking of commenting on some issues contained in a letter that the spokesperson for the Federal Electricity Commission released yesterday about my collaboration last week, but as they come from an official who after three years of being in office does not know what It is a combined cycle plant, a central concept in the field in which it operates, and it does not know that electricity generation is expressed in kilowatts and not in “kilovolts”, it is not worth dedicating more space, except to thank you for have publicized my article.
* The author is an economist.
Twitter: @GerardoFloresR
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx