MEXICO. – The previous opinion was clear: the collapse of a section on the Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro was due to failures of the one of the richest men in the world: Carlos Slim ; The reaction of the president Andrés Manuel López Obrado r was also forceful: he will not go to court to punish him.
On the contrary, the magnate will be in charge of rehabilitating and putting into operation the elevated viaduct where the Line girder collapsed 12 where they circulate around 300, 000 people daily.
“He has the will to fix it,” said the president after meeting with Slim. “We don’t want to go to lawsuits.”
The The announcement shocked the public after the incident that killed The president defended the decision not to proceed legally against Grupo Carso and asked to wait for the final opinion of the Norwegian company DNV, hired as an external auditor to determine the causes of the accident.
In a preview of the investigation presented in recent days, DNV announced that the failure was due to a structural failure associated with at least six deficiencies in its construction.
In this context, opposition politicians drew attention to the inconvenience that Slim’s firm was responsible for the construction of a section of the Mayan Train, one of the emblematic works of the Fourth Transformation.
Dumbbell
The AMLO-Slim power duo – one politician and one ec onomic— is currently on a roll in the long relationship that political analysts describe as “pragmatic” or “expedient” and that dates back at least two decades.
In the year 2000 both coincided in a private dinner and the then Head of the District Government Federal invited the businessman to invest in the country’s capital.
Slim agreed at that time to shoulder the rehabilitation of the Historic Center, which at that time was a kind of slum taken by tramps who fought over ramshackle colonial-era buildings that had gradually fallen into disrepair.
The writer and journalist José Martínez, author of The Dynasty, the heirs of the Slim empire, affirms that, since then, the current president and the magnate have posed for cameras to give a picture of concord, but below the table “kicks each other” and no matter how close it may seem, there is not in the emotional plane.
“The businessman is not a man of friends, he is a man interest. ”
Slim’s businesses in Mexico, where he started his emporium by acquiring over the years 63 the then parastatal Telmex, continue to be an important base of its fortune.
These include, América Móvil, the wireless service provider cell phone company that extends to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay.
Also to Grupo Financiero Inbursa that offers banking services, brokerage houses, surety bonds and investment funds that operates between eight million accounts and 270 branch offices. The chain of 190 Sanborns restaurants and gift shops. The 20% of Citagam than from 1972 is a manufacturer of the Marlboro brand of cigars, one of the best-selling in the world.
Bimex, the bicycle brand, Sears department stores and Saks Fifth Avenue luxury stores; the 15% of Gas Natural and the Internet television project Uno TV.
Against these interests, Carlos Slim It shows that you don’t mind, from time to time, taking a step backwards and then two forwards. The president responds in the same way, analysts observe. “They think strategically,” observes Mario Maldonado, a finance columnist. “If they fight, they both lose.”
Tightening nuts
The 11 last June, shortly before it was announced that neither the local nor the federal government would proceed against Grupo Carso for the collapse of the Line 12, the president met with some of the most important businessmen in the country led by Slim to invite them to invest in the economic recovery after the pandemic.
The meeting was attended by some of the most critical men of the president such as Claudio X. González, president of Kimberly Clark, with whom he maintains a public confrontation of disqualifications, but in the end all agreed to cooperate.
Something similar happened in 2019, after the controversial cancellation of the construction of the Texcoco airport, where the Ingenie ro suffered a loss of millions of dollars and joined the group of protests, then López Obrador criticized other public works contracts where companies of the tycoon participated to build nine gas pipelines to supply fuel to plants of the government Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
According to the president, the conditions under which the agreements were signed were “advantageous” for companies, including Carso Energy.
“Those contracts were abusive, I called them leoninos,” he said about what he considered agreements with so many advantages for companies that left the government practically without the ability to maneuver.
Then Slim’s consortium gave in to renegotiate an agreement in which the Mexican government had better conditions and to achieve this it promoted an international arbitration, the rest of the companies did the same and finally the contracts were fulfilled.
Poste riormente s Slim announced an investment of 5, 000 million dollars in infrastructure for the Mayan Train. “I believe that we have all been ”
“Fight corruption, impunity, grow at 4% (annually), lower current spending. I think there is unanimity, there is a great agreement. ”
Then a photo was taken.
Other details of the relationship
– Slim’s fortune is
valued at 63. 4 billions of dollars. It began with the purchase of the parastatal Telmex in the decade of 1990.
– AMLO came to power with a popular endorsement of approximately 50 millions of Mexicans.
– Their relationship began in 2000 when the magnate was appointed president of the Advisory Council of the Historic Center recovery project and d that paid millions of dollars to recover the infrastructure, streets and businesses.
Thus began a gentrification process.
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