The Mexican news web portal “Animal Politico“, has published the results of an investigation in which it is detailed how in 2015, the administration of PRI governor Rolando Zapata Bello -which concludes next Sunday Sep. 30- transferred more than 150 million pesos (approx. 8 million USD) supposedly destined to a study on serious diseases and other services of the health sector, to a group of 58 companies that did not have the specialists or experience to do that type of work, and which registered as companies dedicated to provide construction services, seafood trade and even plumbing.
These are, in fact, companies that do not operate in their registered fiscal addresses, as it was confirmed by the “Animal Politico” investigation team. Sixteen of these companies had been officially cataloged by the Tax Administration Service (SAT) as “ghost companies” (empresas fantasmas), these are legally constituted companies that only simulate to operate, and had been caught issuing invoices for “non-existant” services.
The public resources were not delivered to these companies under any type of bidding or competition scheme. On the contrary, it was made through alleged contracts directly awarded to these companies by the state government, violating legal requirements and maximum amounts established by law in Yucatán.
There are also cases where the awarding mechanism is simply unknown, and there is absolutely no signed contracts.
Animal Politico has copies of invoices for payments granted to 58 allegedly irregular companies as well as a bank account statement from the Ministry of Health that proves the outflow of resources to several of these companies. In this context, the State Ministry of Health was requested to provide the justification and documents relative to these payments.
Animal Politico will publish a part two of this investigation later on this week.
