CDMX (September 9, 2020).- The tender to award the contract for the works of the so-called “Section 5” of the Maya Train Project in southeastern Mexico, one of the flagship works of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was declared void after determining that the economic offer presented was not solvent enough.
A consortium in which BlackRock participates presented in mid-August the only proposal for the tender to execute a part of the train project, valued at 6.3 billion US dollars, which will run about 1,500 kilometers from the archaeological zone of Palenque, in the state Chiapas, to the touristy Cancun, in Quintana Roo.
“As a consequence of the fact that only one proposal was presented in the contracting procedure and it did not meet the requirements requested in the general rules, the convenor has determined to declare the public tender void,” said the minute of the tender’s decision made by the state National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonatur).
The interested group made up of six companies, proposed to invest in the section of the so-called “Tulum-Cancun highway project”, a public-private partnership, a total of more than 14,965 million pesos (about 670 million dollars).
During the week, López Obrador considered the possibility that the State could take charge of the construction of that section if it was not awarded to the consortium made up of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund.
The Maya Train Project has received criticism from environmentalists and the EZLN, the well known indigenous movement in the Chiapas jungle, who believe that the mega-project will lead to the destruction of nature and what is left of the indigenous peoples’ culture, something that the Government has denied.
