Mexico needs a fund, a strategy or insurance that responds expeditiously, with sufficient resources and without bureaucracy, to the financial effects of natural phenomena such as the one that this week devastated the port of Acapulco, Guerrero, one of the poorest entities in the world. country.
Faced with the misfortune and criticism for the previous disappearance of the Fund for Natural Disasters (Fonden), the federal government has reacted by pointing out that there are sufficient resources to address the effects of natural phenomena, and that these are unlimited.
The truth is that, judging by the evidence, there is no particular item in the budget that indicates that resources are actually fully available for this type of emergency.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), the current resources of what was the Fonden total around 17,156 million pesos and are in a specific section of Branch 23; In addition, a catastrophic damage policy has been contracted for 5 billion dollars, plus a catastrophe bonus for up to 485 million dollars that is activated in the event of hurricanes or earthquakes.
But it is one thing for the resources to exist, assuming that the information is true, which from the outset contrasts with the also official sayings that “they are unlimited”, and another thing is that they are effective and sufficient, are activated immediately, are assigned and are distributed to begin recovery from the first minute after the tragedy.
El Fonden, case study
According to the federal government and the president’s statements, Fonden was a mechanism for theft and corruption of the past. Without failing to recognize that corruption is one of the great evils that afflict Mexico, no evidence of this specific case has been shown.
However, the Fonden, its history, its mechanisms and its operation design, even became a case study in various parts of the world.
In 2012, the World Bank itself prepared an analysis document called “El Fonden, a historical review”, in which it detailed and analyzed the most relevant factors of the organization and its evolution. even highlighting how the mechanism was not only a financial tool against natural disastersbut even part of its resources were directed to their prevention.
The analysis also highlighted two very relevant points: the resources it had managed and the efficiency of its operation.
In the first case, it stood out how in 2010 this fund managed up to 3.5 billion dollars, which at the current exchange rate would be equivalent to 63 billion pesos, and at the exchange rate then they would be around 42 billion.
Nothing to do with the little more than 17,000 million pesos that, according to the Ministry of Finance, are today equivalent to the Fonden, without it being known if they are really labeled for that purpose.
The other notable aspect consisted of the fact that the declaration of a disaster by the federal government was enough for the required resources to be immediately dispersed in the affected areas.
Today the federal government, in the face of the disaster in Acapulco, has indicated that it will send 1,000 “servants of the nation” to carry out the respective surveys and determine who should and can have the support of the government. Perhaps it was enough to know that, according to what has been known so far, the port of Acapulco was completely devastated; That is to say, there are around 1 million human beings who are affected in one way or another.
In summary, that Fonden, analyzed in 2012 by the World Bank, had many more resources than the equivalent of what a mechanism has today that, the current government says, fulfills the same functions.
Furthermore, 48 hours after the tragedy it is not known how or when aid will arrive to the affected area, we will still have to wait for the results of the surveys of the “servants of the nation”, while that happens, the situation worsens.
In the 2012 analysis, it was also highlighted how Fonden meant great financial support for the entities that historically were most affected by natural phenomena, coincidentally headed by the poorest states in the country: Oaxaca, Chiapas, Michoacán, Quintana Roo, Guerrero, Veracruz and Tabasco.
In other words, these entities did not have then, and neither do they have today, the human, material and, above all, financial resources to deal with major catastrophes like the one experienced today in Guerrero.
Fonden was not only reactive
As we noted previously, the analysis document prepared by the World Bank made it clear that, in 2012, Fonden was no longer only the federal government’s financial mechanism to confront disasters, but it had evolved and a part of the funds were dedicated to prevention tasksalthough it was still a very low percentage.
The point is to know since when the Fonden stopped fulfilling this function. As we know, prevention is essential in civil protection tasks. The disappearance of the Fonden certainly put an end to these prevention tasks at least by that means, and most likely it happened long before it ended.
Mexico needs to resume an authentic strategy of civil protection, prevention and consolidation of a financial fund, or sufficient insurance, immediately available to respond to disasters and tragedies like the one that devastated Acapulco just a few hours agoin the state of Guerrero.
Today, the supposed fund destined for this purpose has much fewer resources, the reactivation and dispersion of the funds is much slower, and even has a whiff of political management, morally questionable in a situation of hardship and need for hundreds of thousands of people.
As if that were not enough, it does not carry out prevention tasks that are essential so that the unpredictable and inevitable natural phenomena that hit the country from time to time have as little impact as possible, especially because, as always happens, it is the poorest who are most affected. .
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