President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused that officials and scientists of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) applied a kind of “blackmail” to the government so that they were granted resources for trips with luxuries and extravagances.
The president explained that thanks to their influence in the media and with the intelligentsia at the service of neoliberal regimes, they could press for budget allocations.
Read: Accusation of Conacyt scientists, inconceivable and absurd: UNAM
“Now that there is this controversy with the Conacyt, a group of researchers had a civil association and they went to congresses and they had to be paid from the budget even for their luxuries,” said the head of the federal Executive in a press conference from the Palace National.
“And since they had a lot of influence and good grip and good relations with the media and with the organic intelligentsia of the regime, it was a kind of blackmail and they had to be given these funds.”
The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) carries out an investigation against 31 former officials of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) for allegedly breaking the treasury by 244 million pesos.
Lee: FGR will request, for the third time, the arrest of Conacyt scientists
López Obrador explained that in past governments, these academics were paid trips to congresses at the expense of the government, which implied a luxury.
He regretted that the scientific community reproached his government for the lack of support for science and technology only because the luxuries and extravagances to which they were accustomed in past governments were cut.
The federal president emphasized that his government exerts a constant investment in technological development, which has generated important advances in innovation in Mexican science and that it has already been launched in some projects with the development of vaccines and respirators.
“Now it’s applied research, Conacyt has done extraordinary things. Imagine, (were) ventilators to care for Covid-19 patients at the times when it was most needed, ”said the president.
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