Between 2019 and 2022, the Mexican government spent at least 1.7 billion pesos to renovate large baseball stadiums and build small fields in sports units in at least 11 states across the country.
Money came out to strengthen the favorite sport of the president of Mexico Urban Improvement Program (PMU) administered by the Secretary for Urban and Territorial Development (Sedatu). A fund launched by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2019 for reduce the urban and social underdevelopment of vulnerable municipalities in the country.
An important part of these resources is served to build stadiums which benefit the professional teams of the Mexican baseball leagues. The same was addressed to baseball projects in areas where there are other clear needs such as paving, drainage, drinking water networks, health centers, schools, among others. In places like Chalco, State of Mexico, baseball isn’t even popular with the locals.
And if that weren’t enough, the contracts delivered at a fixed price and for a fixed time have not been fulfilled. In 15 out of 26 municipalities, the delivery of the works took between 5 and 21 months. In several cases, such as the stadiums developed in Jalpa de Méndez and Cunduacán in Tabasco, the constructions also presented shortcomings: materials not adapted to the climate, lack of leveling of the ground, stands and collapsing roofs.
Manuel Vargas Izquierdo Stadium, Jalpa de Mendez. Photo: Diego Prado
New stadium in Cunduacán, Tabasco. Photo: Diego Prado
Centennial Stadium February 27 in Villahermosa, Centro, Tabasco. Photo: Diego Prado
New stadium in Chalco, State of Mexico. Photo: Athena Campuzano
Luis Anzaldo Stream Stadium in Palenque, Chiapas. Photo: Sedatu
To learn the innards of PMU’s use for baseball project development, the right of access to public information set forth in the General Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information was used. About 100 applications were submitted of information addressed to the federal agency and the beneficiary municipalities. They have been obtained contracts, payment lists, letters of application and delivery-receipt reports of the works. In some cases, the information was obtained after filing review appeals for non-response or disclaimer of the information by federal and state law enforcers.
The answers obtained through transparency take into account the lack of documentation which justifies how these works contribute to reducing the urban and social underdevelopment of the municipalities in which they were established, how they benefit indigenous communities, promote equality and reduce violence —criteria established in the Program—. Sedatu declined to comment.
2023-06-07 11:07:59
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