Mexico registers record numbers of daily deaths from coronavirus and the economy collapses, but the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has decided to invest in remodeling the stadium of a local league baseball team.
The stadium belongs to the local government of Palenque, in the state of Chiapas, but the team, the Guacamayas, is owned by
Pío López Obrador
, brother of the Mexican president.
The Ministry of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development (Sedatu) this week assigned a contract for 89 million pesos (approximately 4.5 million dollars) for the project, according to a journalistic investigation by the group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity.
"When Pío [López Obrador] registered the Guacamayas de Chiapas brand in his name, on July 28, 2017, he provided the team's address at Calle Jiménez 88, in the San Juanito neighborhood, in Palenque, which corresponds to the baseball stadium which will be modernized with federal resources, "indicates the Mexicanos investigation.
The Government has bet, even in the midst of the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, to finance large and
controversial infrastructure projects.
[There is strong corruption in the public agency to "return to the people" the robberies of drug traffickers in Mexico, according to a complaint]
Among them, a new oil refinery in Dos Bocas, whose works have been flooded, or the so-called Mayan Train, which will link tourist routes in the Yucatan Peninsula through the jungle with the supposed intention of promoting the local economy.
This last project has been marked by a bidding process to designate opaque contracts and by complaints that it will cause damage to the environment and to the indigenous populations living in those areas.
Meanwhile, Mexican hospitals are collapsed due to a lack of investment (in many there are not even supplies for intubations, nor have they had urgent medications for childhood cancer treatments for months), and
Mexicans have not received help
at the federal level as in the States States, where two stimulus checks have already been distributed.
López Obrador, nicknamed AMLO, has instructed that the aid be delivered only through certain social programs, such as one of assistance to the elderly, or with housing loans.
This means that in many homes where there are no older adults, for example, practically no help has arrived.
"There is no money for medicines, less for autonomous organizations. But for baseball there is always. And much more if it remains in the family," economist Valeria Moy denounced on Twitter, also referring to the president's attempts to eliminate organizations such as the Institute National Access to Public Information (INAI) because it supposedly costs too much to operate.
[COVID-19: In Mexico, cemeteries ... and beaches are at the limit]
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, part of the UN, estimates that the collapse of the Mexican economy in 2020 was 9%, while the average for the region was 7%.
The country's recovery could take place until 2025, he also predicts.
They capture AMLO's brother receiving alleged bribery
Aug. 21, 202000: 34
Pío López Obrador was already involved in a scandal last year
, when videos came to light in which he received envelopes apparently containing cash.
At the time, AMLO, who campaigned promising to banish the corruption of previous governments, said the money was not about bribes but what he called "contributions" from the people.
[US tourists travel to the Mexican Caribbean in record numbers, and they carry the virus with them]
Later, it was revealed that a company owned by the president's cousin had also benefited from multiple contracts from the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) despite the fact that it was asked to prevent these tenders due to family ties.
The contracts were suspended after the disclosure and Pemex announced an investigation.
Now a baseball stadium in Chiapas will receive the taxpayers' money, at a time when there are not even scheduled games for the Mexican league for that sport.
