In one quarter, 81% of the resources of the Customs trust were spent

Between July and September of this year, 81% of the resources deposited in the Customs Trust were exhausted, according to information from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP).

For the third quarter of the year, the balance of the Trust to Manage the Consideration, stipulated in article 16 of the Customs Law, totaled 16,776 million pesos.

The balance reported to September is 81% lower than what was reported in the second quarter, of 89,000 million pesos.

“Given the lack of transparency of the trust, there is no way to officially know what the Army spent this money on, unless the ASF audits it next year,” said México Evalúa.

Through the leaks of Guacamaya Leaks, it has been revealed that the resources that were withdrawn from this Trust were used to spend on priority government works.

According to the leaks, 113,000 million pesos were allocated to the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) – which now also controls some customs in the country – in order to cover the costs of works such as the Tehuantepec Isthmus Corridor. , the Mayan Train, the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, for the so-called Guaymas Project, as well as works on the northern border.

“The opportunity cost of all these uses will be fewer resources for the development of infrastructure in customs matters, the main objective of such a fund. Although it must be said that this instrument was not perfect, since it was classified as not very transparent by the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) and, in 2007, irregularities for 10,000 million pesos were detected. It was even said that it functioned as a parallel budget for the SAT”, highlighted México Evalúa.

waiting for the owner

After the departure of Horacio Duarte, to join the campaign of Delfina Gómez who is seeking the governorship of the State of Mexico, the National Customs Agency of Mexico (ANAM) was left without a head for about two months.

It was just at the beginning of this month that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appointed Rafael Marín Mollinedo as the new head of ANAM, a position that has yet to be ratified by the Union Congress.

Marín Mollinedo has a degree in Economics from UNAM, and within the López Obrador government he served as general director of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in addition to being head of the Federal Authority for the Development of Special Economic Zones.

Collection of more than 1 bdp

After being severely affected by the Covid-19 crisis, the government anticipates that, by the end of this year, customs collection will once again register a level above one trillion pesos, as happened last year in through the reactivation of the economy.

Before leaving his post at ANAM, Horacio Duarte reported that they expect income from taxes through customs to add up to 1,104,000 million pesos this year.

According to the official, this would mean a growth of 16% so far in the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“For citizens to understand the strategic importance of customs, (the proceeds) would be equivalent to a third of tax revenue,” he said.

The growth in tax revenue obtained through customs happened even with the Covid-19 pandemic, which in 2020 threw down the collection, which Horacio Duarte attributed to the arrival of the armed forces at customs, something that has caused controversy. on the subject of the militarization of the country.

From January to September, the 50 customs offices in the country left a collection of 820.320 million pesos, a growth of 2.95% according to ANAM data.

“Since customs are in charge of the Secretary of Defense (Sedena) and the Secretary of the Navy (Semar), there has been an increase in income of the order of 20 percent. We are already collecting at customs, around 1 billion pesos. There are no leaks and smuggling is not allowed,” López Obrador previously stated.

ana.martinez@eleconomista.mx