Isla Mujeres, Q.R. — The new mayor of the municipality of Isla Mujeres says her administration took over city council with a debt in excess of 140 million peso. Mayor Atenea Gómez Ricalde revealed a preliminary debt of just over 140 million pesos in the Municipal Treasury.
“As I promised, I will personally be informing the people of the situation of the municipal public administration and the situation in which it was received,” she commented.
In the Municipal Treasury, she declared that the delivery and reception procedures were not carried out in a timely manner, which has made total access to the City Council accounts impossible.
She said that the only account accessible as of September 30 had a balance of 21,152 pesos. She added that they are working on accessing the other City Council account balances, which she noted, are accounts with Bansi, Bancomer and HSBC.
“So far, we do not have official balances issued for these requests,” she said.
She specified that the most worrisome data found so far is the 140-million-peso debt in the Municipal Treasury, of which 52 million is due to a lack of commune worker payments that have not been made since 2016.
“In the case of Fovissste, there is a debt of 15.9 million pesos, which is why at this time, the workers do not have access to this housing loan. In the case of ISSSTE, we find a debt of 9.7 million pesos. In the case of Retirement Insurance, which is the most serious, 65.2 million peso of debt. In total, all these accounts amount to more than 140 million pesos of debt,” she explained.
She also revealed that there was no audit carried out by the outgoing administration from 2016 to September 29, 2021. “For five years, there was no work by the Municipal Comptroller to verify the status of the municipal administration” she added.
“In the Public Works department, they erased all information from computers, the files, the tenders and others. They are practically empty. We cannot begin by reviewing what projects were done and how much they cost, how they were done and the quality of the work because there is no information on the computers,” she stressed.
Gómez Ricalde said that the issue of the delivery reception will continue to be deepened and that residents will be informed of the way in which the accounts were delivered to the present government.