The Mexican Congress approves the first Budget of López Obrador

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The public accounts for 2019 go ahead with the support of Morena and her allies in the Lower House.

Green light for the first Budgets of the López Obrador era. The Mexican Chamber of Deputies has given, in the early hours of Monday, its definitive approval to the law of expenditures, which includes cuts to autonomous bodies to distribute them among sensitive areas such as the agricultural sector, the protection of the environment or public universities. These had been some of the worst-off points that had come out of the budget project that the secretary (minister) of Finance of the Executive of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Carlos Urzúa, took a little over a week ago to Congress. The deputies still had one more week to approve the Budget.

The 2019 accounts have gone ahead with the support of the party of the president ( Morena, left ) and its allies of the PES (ultraconservatives) and the PT (left), as well as the Green Party, former PRI ally of former president Enrique Peña Nieto. Among them, they have added 312 votes, for the 154 votes against the opponent’s PAN, PRI, PRD, and Movimiento Ciudadano. The first of the two legs on which the Mexican budget is based, the income law, had already been approved last week by lawmakers amid criticism from the opposition groups for the cuts in several areas and the speed with which the accounts were processed. The rough tone has remained in the early hours of this Monday.

The total Mexican budget will be 5.8 trillion pesos, almost 23.800 million (around 1.2 billion dollars) over what was proposed at first by the Treasury. It contemplates a reduction of the items that had originally been budgeted for autonomous organizations, such as the electoral arbitrator and the transparency agency of Mexico, to allocate more money for the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food -8,000 million pesos more, 400 million dollars-, to public universities -such as the UNAM, the largest educational institution in Latin America, which had suffered an important snip on its economic allocation compared to previous years- and, marginally, to Culture. The dependence on Environment and Natural Resources earns, for its part, 4,500 million pesos (slightly more than 225 million dollars) with respect to the first draft and the UNAM, 2,500 million pesos, after what is practically at the same level as in the exercise that ends next week. Both Agriculture and the Environment, however, continue to have less money than in the current year.

The increases in the Budget are mainly for sectors that had been especially critical of the López Obrador project, such as the mute of culture, universities, and farmers. “Since we presented the proposal […] we have listened to the voices of all the political, economic and social actors, we know that before a regime transition, there are naturally practices, inertia and beliefs that resist changes that the country demands. Aware of this, we have been and will be receptive to the diverse opinions expressed in this process, “the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit said Monday in a statement.

Among those most affected by the reassignments is the judiciary, with a reduction of around 1,700 million pesos, the statistical office (Inegi) -which, nevertheless, will continue to receive more money than this year- or the National Electoral Institute (INE). ). In total, the State changes hands 16,700 million pesos with respect to the initial project.

In recent days, access to the building of the so-called legislative palace of San Lazaro, in the east of the capital, was blocked by peasant organizations related to opposition parties to demand that deputies public accounts contemplate more support for the field. 

Source: El Pais

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