• ACCUSATIONS: Parents associations in dozens of public schools in the central state of Guanajuato have accused that representatives of Mexico’s federal government’s have pressured them to stir money from a new school improvement program to preferred contractors.
• CORRUPTION: Implemented by the López Obrador administration, the program channels resources directly to local parents associations to try to eliminate unnecessary intermediaries. Parents have formally denounced illegal pressure from representatives of the federal government In at least 83 schools in Guanajuato.
• PRESSURE: “The (representatives of the federal government) do not get the money directly. But they wait for the (mothers) at the bank, they watch that they make the withdrawal and then they accompany them with the contractor”, said Roberto Duran, a state official in Guanajuato state, who knows about the complaints.
• PROGRAM: Heralded by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a program to eliminate unnecessary intermediaries, the program has channeled so far the equivalent of US $406.9 million to parents associations in 49,000 schools across Mexico, according to government data.
