Baja Bernie
`Normal` Nomad Correspondent
Posts: 2962
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: Sunset Beach
Member Is Offline
Mood: Just dancing through life
|
|
Carlos Hank Rhon + Carols Slim Helu = Privatizing Mexico's Roads/Again
March 7, 2007
Commerce News
The Great Highway Auction
Drivers heading south through the Mexican border state of
Nuevo Leon will pay a Spanish company money for the
privilege of using the new Monterrey-Saltillo freeway.
Traveling recently to Nuevo Leon to formally inaugurate
construction of the road, Mexican President Felipe Calderon
used the occasion to promote a broader re-privatization
program for Mexican highways. The Calderon administration
initiative will affect highways that were taken over by the
federal Mexican government from private companies during
the financial crisis of the 1990s in a bail-out that cost
tax-payers billions of dollars. The ownership rights to
dozens of roads were previously handed over to the private
sector during the 1988-94 administration of former
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
More than a decade later, President Calderon is putting the
highways on the auction block once again, and even offering
partial subsidies to private companies that take over the
road maintenance and user fee collection services.
According to President Calderon, income from the sales of
highways will also bring in new money and permit doubling
the amount of highway construction authorized in the
congressionally-approved 2007 budget.. The new policy,
which could tap into a $250 million-dollar line of credit
from the Inter-American Development Bank if needed,
proposes awarding private highway concessions for a 30-year
period.
Currently, Mexicans and foreign travelers pay very high
fares to travel on toll roads in varying degrees of
condition operated by the federal government. Earlier this
year, Mexican broadcast media carried stories about the
deplorable conditions between Cuernavaca and Acapulco on
the popular Highway of the Sun, which once whisked millions
of sun-seekers to Pacific Coast beaches in record time but
is now plagued by rock slides, pot holes and even trench-
like cave-ins. The road has deteriorated to such an extent
that the federal government state recently slashed the
popularly-criticized expensive fares as an incentive to
keep tourism moving.
Guerrero state Governor Zeferino Torreblanca has made an
urgent call to the federal government to finish its repairs
on the Highway of the Sun, even if it means foregoing
additional discounts for travelers.
Reaction to the Calderon administration's highway re-
privatization package has been mixed. Jose Luis Flores,
vice-president of business development for Moody's,
assessed the program as attractive to big investors that
partner with construction companies, but he cautioned that
investors who are not in the business of highway
maintenance might neglect "the operation of the highway."
In the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, representatives of the
PRI and PRD political parties questioned awarding national
roads to private companies, while Cristian Castano, vice-
coordinator for President Calderon's PAN party in the
legislative body, praised the highway project. In order to
avoid a future public bail-out. Castano urged that
conditions be attached to the program.
In an editorial, the left-of-center Mexico City daily La
Jornada questioned the role of Communications and
Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez in the re-
privatization scheme. The newspaper criticized Tellez for
his past record as a Salinas administration agriculture
department official who promoted the North American Free
Trade Agreement and the privatization of Mexican ejidos,
and raised questions about Tellez's ties to the US-based
Carlyle Group historically associated with former US
President George Herbert Walker Bush. Tellez also served as
Secretary of Energy during the presidency of Salinas'
successor, Ernesto Zedillo.
Several Mexican and foreign companies have expressed
interest in the new highway program. The firms mentioned
include Gutsa, IDEAL and ICA, among others. In the case of
the Monterrey-Saltillo road, the Spanish company Isolux-
Corsan has been granted the right to collect fares for 30
years. In PRI-ruled Mexico state, meanwhile, a new state
freeway system in the Toluca Valley has been contracted out
for 15 years to magnates Carlos Hank Rhon and Carlos Slim
Helu, the founder of IDEAL. Governor Enrique Pena Nieto has
pledged that his administration will triple the number of
miles devoted to freeways in Mexico state by the end of his
administration.
Sources: La Jornada, March 3 and 6, 2007. Articles by
Israel Davila and editorial staff. El Universal, March 2, 3
and 6, 2007. Articles by the Notimex news agency, Agencia
Reforma and Mayolo Lopez. El Diario de Coahuila, February
28, 2007.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
My smidgen of a claim to fame is that I have had so many really good friends. By Bernie Swaim December 2007
|
|
|
DENNIS
Platinum Nomad
Posts: 29510
Registered: 9-2-2006
Location: Punta Banda
Member Is Offline
|
|
Caltrans should come down and get involved. They could teach the Mexican workers the correct way to lean on a shovel.
|
|
|
bancoduo
Banned
Posts: 1003
Registered: 10-3-2005
Location: el carcel publico mazatlan sin.
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by DENNIS
Caltrans should come down and get involved. They could teach the Mexican workers the correct way to lean on a shovel. |
And the three others standing around watching the guy lean on the shovel.
|
|
|
DENNIS
Platinum Nomad
Posts: 29510
Registered: 9-2-2006
Location: Punta Banda
Member Is Offline
|
|
Those are supervisors.
|
|
|
Baja Bernie
`Normal` Nomad Correspondent
Posts: 2962
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: Sunset Beach
Member Is Offline
Mood: Just dancing through life
|
|
Cal-Trans does not built roads. They build beautiful offices, bridges, and retaining walls. And they do that very slowly while sitting in stereo and
airconditioned multi-million dollar rigs. They wouldn't know how to lean on a shovel even if they knew what it was for.
My smidgen of a claim to fame is that I have had so many really good friends. By Bernie Swaim December 2007
|
|
|
jerry
Super Nomad
Posts: 1354
Registered: 10-10-2003
Location: loreto
Member Is Offline
|
|
THEY SHOULD WORK FOR TIPS?? LOL PAYING THEM DOSE NOT WORK
jerry and judi
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
