Among the first issues to be resolved by the next Secretary of Communications, Infrastructure and Transportation (SCIT), Jesús Esteva, is to define the viability and functionality of the Mexican Postal Service, baptized in this six-year term as Correos, which has been burdened with a series of multi-million dollar contracts that have benefited a couple of companies belonging to the Quintanilla family, particularly those associated with Manfred Mauricio Quintanilla.
The structure of the former Sepomex is practically abandoned and its parcel and courier services have been outsourced through strange and multimillion-dollar contracts, such as those for “reception, transportation and delivery of mail, shipments and movable goods through trunk and primary postal routes”, which have been the responsibility for four years of the transport company TUM, and will be until May 31, 2027, in the middle of Claudia Sheinbaum’s six-year term, thanks to two outsourcing contracts totaling more than 2,700 million pesos.
The last of these contracts was delivered last May 17, two weeks before the largest electoral process in Mexico’s history, through a public tender in which the service providers for the next three years were TUM Transportistas Mexicanos and TUM Logística y Servicios Dedicados, owned by businessman Manfred Mauricio Quintanilla Hernández.
Both companies are the beneficiaries of another multi-year contract delivered by the Post Office in October 2020 and both were also the only participants in the bidding process that was carried out by the SCIT, for which alleged violations to the Law of Acquisitions, Leasing and Services of the Public Sector are detected.
Quintanilla Hernandez also has an important record of irregularities in the current six-year term.For example, he is the owner of the electricity supplier EVM Energía del Valle de México SAPI de CV, the only one that since 2016, without having participated in Long-Term Auctions, had secured supply contracts with the CFE, despite the arrival of Manuel Bartlett to the management of the state-owned company.
One of its strangest deals was the supply of electricity to the Mexico City Water System (Sacmex). The private company whose trade name is EVM Energy was the real supplier of this agency of the capital government from 2020 to 2023, despite the fact that the contracts -five in total for more than 400 million pesos- were signed with the company name CFE Calificados.
According to the allegations, the contracts between Sacmex and CFE were signed by way of triangulation using the same addition in Annex 4, which specifies that “the Contracted Electrical Energy will be supplied from the power plant (”Power Plant 1“) which is located at the following address: The plant located on the Otumba-Ciudad Sahagún Highway kilometer 016+050, Lot B, Xala, Axapusco, C.P. 55963, State of Mexico”.
In the permits granted by the Energy Regulatory Commission to EVM Energy, it is evident that the electricity generation plant indicated in the contracts is that of the Quintanilla family, although conveniently neither the name of the private firm nor that of Manfred Mauricio appear in the official texts.
Postscript 1
In view of the investigations and lawsuits with his partners, a few months ago Manfred Mauricio Quintanilla went into exile in California, United States. It is presumed that arrest warrants have already been issued for him.
Posdata 2
Pese a que la idea original no era que se integrara formalmente al gabinete de la futura presidenta de México, la empresaria Altagracia Gómez aceptó coordinar un Consejo Empresarial en el próximo gobierno, el cual será distinto al que integró el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
La semana pasada publiqué que la relación de los enlaces de Sheinbaum con la iniciativa privada serían más bien institucionales, es decir que el nuevo Consejo Empresarial tendrá relación directa con las cámaras y organismo empresariales, como el CCE, el Consejo Mexicana de Negocios y otros, y a su vez con secretarías de Estado como Hacienda, Economía y Energía.
De esta manera que no se prevé que necesariamente lo integren empresarios, como fue el caso del Consejo Asesor Empresarial de AMLO, en el que convivieron Ricardo Salinas Pliego, Bernardo Gómez, Olegario Vázquez Aldir, Carlos Hank González, Daniel Chávez, Miguel Rincón, Sergio Gutiérrez y Miguel Alemán Magnani.
En todo caso, hay hombres y mujeres de negocios que en lo personal tienen cercanía con la futura presidenta y se anticipa que sean considerados en sus planes de gobierno y quizá como asesores externos. Entre estos están, tres que repiten del Consejo Asesor de AMLO: Bernardo Gómez, Daniel Chávez y Sergio Gutiérrez; y otros como Carlos Slim Helú; José Miguel Bejos, Manuel Muñoz Cano, Guadalupe Phillips, Armando Garza Sada, Marcos y Samuel Fastlicht; Ángel y Alejandro Mussi; Marcos y José Shabot; Mauricio y Héctor Sulaimán.
Postscript 3
Claudia Sheinbaum met with some of the directors of banks in the context of the 2024 edition of the International Monetary Conference (IMC), where the future president of Mexico said that “shared prosperity” will be the central axis of her government.
“Sustainable development with well-being, in short, means shared prosperity, prosperity for all,” she said before Agustín Carstens, CEO of the Bank for International Settlements; Alejandro Díaz de León, former governor of Banxico; Héctor Grisi, CEO of Grupo Santander, and Carlos Torres Vila, president of BBVA.
In the midst of fears in the banking sector about the reforms that may be undertaken, not only that of the Judiciary -which like most businessmen and investors generates concern for them-, but also for banks, after the idea of increasing the payment of taxes on their profits has circulated, Sheinbaum commented that the country’s economic development has to be reflected in wellbeing for Mexican workers and not only in macroeconomic investment indicators.
“What we want is welfare for the people of Mexico and how we can make this manufacturing development turn not only into investment, but also into welfare,” she said, emulating the ‘welfare index’ proposed by López Obrador to measure the economy, instead of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product).