Chihuahua.- Faced with the accusation of embezzlement against him, former governor Javier Corral said that the debt restructuring, for which he allegedly hired a private firm for 98.6 million pesos, left savings of seven billion pesos to the Treasury of Chihuahua.
However, the same office that benefited during his administration – called López Elías Finanzas Públicas SC – stated that the savings would be 3.5 billion pesos, which shows a contradiction with the figures that the former governor announced about the results of the refinancing process.
However, these two figures are also contradictory with the official record of all obligations that make up the state public debt, which shows an increase of 2.5 billion pesos between the beginning and the end of Corral Jurado’s administration.
The arrest warrant that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office attempted to execute against Javier Corral last Wednesday night in Mexico City arose from a complaint by the State Superior Audit Office (ASE), following the forensic review of the state’s public debt, towards the end of the 2016-2021 administration.
The audit detected various irregularities, including the fact that there was no evidence of the work supposedly carried out by the firm hired to support the restructuring of liabilities, called López Elías Finanzas Públicas SC
The only evidence of alleged support for the refinancing work was dated before the signing of the contract; however, according to the complaint, this was also irregular because the firm was not on the State Government’s Supplier Registry and they did not issue the corresponding budget sufficiency agreement that must be made for any expenditure of public resources.
Furthermore, the audit found that the State Procurement Law had been flouted by the Treasury Department in this process, since a trust fund expressly prohibited by the law was established to avoid certain legal provisions aimed at discretionary management of public resources.
Furthermore, the Treasury Department had the technical capacity to carry out the restructuring process and it was not necessary to hire a third party to support the process.
Despite the irregular hiring, two payments were made to López Elías Finanzas Públicas for a total amount of 98 million 600 thousand pesos, which gave rise to the criminal investigation that since May 2023 required the former Secretary of Finance of the Corral government, Arturo FV, considered a fugitive from justice since that date.
Later, the same case involved the former governor, who was able to avoid arrest in the country’s capital, thanks to the intervention of the Mexico City prosecutor, Ulises Lara, who prevented the Chihuahua agents from carrying out the arrest warrant issued by a criminal control judge of the state justice system. After that, Corral Jurado obtained a provisional suspension through an amparo suit.
Contradictions between Corral and Lopez Elias
Following the arrest attempt, the state’s anti-corruption prosecutor, Abelardo Valenzuela Holguín, considered Corral Jurado a fugitive from justice and reiterated the accusations that the investigative body intends to bring against former governor Corral and the former Secretary of the Treasury, for possible aggravated embezzlement, given the diversion of almost 100 million pesos in a contract for which there is no evidence of its usefulness.
For his part, the former governor, in addition to resorting to the protection of constitutional rights, addressed a letter to the public through his social networks, in which he complained that in the file opened by the ASE, former officials of his government and the López Elías office have been prevented from presenting evidence that discredits the alleged findings.
“Because in this case, neither truth nor justice is of interest, but rather María Eugenia Campos’ desire for revenge in the face of the fight against corruption that my administration carried out, of which she was a beneficiary and for which she was linked to criminal proceedings,” he stated.
According to Corral, the work carried out by the office that benefited from almost 100 million pesos, “is supported by 23 volumes with more than 14,500 pages detailing the activities carried out and duly recorded in the delivery-receipt records, as well as in more than 4,500 electronic communications between the State Government and the participating financial institutions, securities rating agencies, and the advisory office, and in the answers to the more than 400 questions that the financial institutions formulated during the process.”
This alleged evidence was not found in the forensic audit carried out, even though the review was carried out during the same Corral Jurado administration.
“To say that the work carried out did not exist or to attribute responsibility to me in said process only confirms that lies continue to be the motto of the current state administration,” said Corral, who accused “a media lynching” and asserted that the process violates due process and his presumption of innocence.
“The debt restructuring brought important benefits: reduction of the interest rate, release of resources and savings of more than 7 billion pesos, which allowed us to partially clean up our finances, carry out public works, and withstand complex situations,” he said.
This figure of savings of seven billion pesos contrasts with what the López Elías firm announced in July 2019, when it obtained the multimillion-dollar contract from the Corral government. Corral did not make any reference to the irregular process for hiring the firm.
“The López Elías law firm has participated, together with its director Pedro López Elías, to advise the administration of Governor Javier Corral in such a relevant process,” the private entity stated institutionally in a statement issued on July 2, 2019.
“Through the (restructuring) process, a 50% reduction in the surcharge was achieved, which is estimated to result in savings of up to 3.5 billion pesos to be used for productive investment.”
The difference of 3.5 billion pesos between what Corral Jurado expressed and López Elías’s estimate casts doubt on the veracity of both figures.
Corral also failed with the debt
Regardless of the irregularities, during Corral’s government there was an attempt to restructure the public debt and a second refinancing process, but none of them yielded results, which can be seen in the balance of all the entity’s commitments and obligations.
The subnational debt records of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), which have as their main component the direct obligations of the Executive in the case of Chihuahua, indicate that in 2014 the financial commitments of the state totaled 41 thousand 894 million pesos, which then represented 9.2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and also 86.2 percent of the Total Income (TI) of the entity; the debt per inhabitant was 11 thousand 404 pesos.
By 2016, the last year of César Duarte’s administration and the beginning of Corral Jurado’s, the debt had grown to 49,408 million pesos; per capita it was 13,188 and represented 82 percent of the IT and 9.7 percent of the GDP.
By 2019, a little more than halfway through Corral’s administration, the debt had grown to 52,239 million pesos; the per capita debt also reached one of its highest levels, with 13,567 pesos per inhabitant.
At the end of Corral’s administration in 2021, the state’s total liabilities showed a reduction because the refinancing only extended payment terms, but expenses remained on the rise. The five-year period ended at 51,890 million pesos, a decrease compared to the previous year, but well above the 49,408 received from the previous administration.
The alleged savings of seven billion pesos or three thousand five hundred million pesos in the restructuring of the public debt have no documentary support in the evolution of liabilities, since the available fiscal information only shows that, as a result of the restructuring process, only the payment due dates were renegotiated, some until the year 2030.
Currently, although the direct record of the Executive shows downward variations, the subnational debt corresponding to Chihuahua is located at 52 thousand 139 million pesos, according to the report for the first quarter of 2024, contained in the list of Financing and obligations of federal entities and their public entities, also recorded in publications of the Center for Studies of Public Finances of the Chamber of Deputies.
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