President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has urged senators to get rid of the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI), which has been inactive since March 31st.
“I would tell lawmakers that I do not agree with that institution, I would tell them that we agree with that position and not to hesitate,” he said this Friday during his morning press conference at the National Palace, echoing the legislative proposal del Morenista Alejandro Armenta disappears from INAI.
“Let them reform that institution. Better to say, that they disappear and that this function is entrusted to the superior control of the Federation and that billions of pesos are saved,” he added.
AMLO also attacked lawmakers who held a sit-in in the Senate of the Republic after the plenary vote rejected the appointment of Ricardo Salgado Perrilliat as fifth commissioner of INAI, who would have allowed the institute to meet because he had the number necessary legal.
“Now lawmakers are sitting in the Senate because they are defending one of these good-for-nothing organizations that were created just to pretend to fight corruption,” he said.
The president also said that INAI was created “to deceive people that there is transparency and that everything is clean”.
“We know perfectly well that throughout the neoliberal period, while that body existed, great robberies were committed, the country was plundered with impunity,” he added.
I repropose that the Superior Auditing Office of the Federation (ASF) is in charge of it or that the Legislative Power is in charge because “it has the exclusive power to approve the public budget”.
“The proposal is that they agree, it is a recommendation for that body to become part of the higher audit of the Federation that they continue to ask for information but do not simulate”
INAI has been inoperative since 31 March because it does not have the legal headquarters necessary to meet. This is due to the fact that the Senate of the Republic has not elected the officials who will fill the seats that have been empty since April last year.
That said, various organisations, politicians and citizens have warned of the impact that the ineffectiveness of the Institute would have on the right of access to information and responsibility.
Conversely, AMLO argued that it would be “better if it didn’t exist,” while Armenta presented a proposal on Thursday to make it disappear. However, this was removed from the parliamentary gazette hours later.
