Most funds for Mexico’s 84.9 billion pesos ($4 billion) Felipe Ángeles International AirportWhere (AIFA) come from a military trust fund rather than the public budget, which obscures the expenditure figures.
The Ministry of Defense, Sedena, is in charge of the construction of the Santa Lucia Air Base.
According to a Ministry of Finance (SHCP) on Sunday, financial progress was 80.7% as of July 15.
This means that the government has allocated a total of 68.5 billion pesos from the public budget and the trust for the administration and payment of military equipment, the ministry said. Of this amount, 18.1 billion came from the government budget and 50.3 billion pesos from the trust.
The trust is also supported by the federal spending budget. But how the funds are used is not reflected in budget reports, making it impossible to assess spending.
The government has earmarked 21.3 billion pesos in the federal expenditure budget for the project this year. As of July 15, the finance ministry said 17.5 billion pesos had been transferred from the budget to the airport trust. Some 3.2 billion pesos were still available in mid-July and 18.1 billion pesos were allocated from the government budget.
From January to July, 851 million pesos from the budget and 33 billion pesos from the trust were used to finance the construction.
Although the Ministry of Finance revealed that most of the funding came from the trust fund, it did not reveal the amount transferred since construction began in October 2019. The airport is expected to open on March 21, 2022. physical progress reached 61.5% in June. 30.
THE PATH TO TRANSPARENCY
The government has only recently recognized the use of the fund.
While related to expenses Controversies have grown over the past two years, federal regulator ASF said in its 2019 report, released in February, that federal spending has not matched the airport’s financial progress.
He said that in the 2019 federal expenditure budget, the government allocated 9.4 billion pesos, but the Ministry of Defense returned 4.2 billion pesos. The following year, funding through the budget decreased.
In response, Sedena said most of the funding came from the military equipment confidence. This was the first time the mechanism was mentioned in relation to the airport.
Separately, the daily La Jornada reported in February that the ministry had started using the trust fund in response to budget cuts.
SHCP reportedly asked Sedena to cut costs even though the project required additional new projects such as a 60km aqueduct to supply water to the Mezquital Valley air base in Hidalgo state.
