Deputies approved the creation of an emergency fund of 180 billion pesos to address the coronavirus crisis

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The Chamber of Deputies approved on Wednesday an emergency fund to combat the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico that includes more than 180 billion pesos to mitigate impacts on health, the economy, productivity, consumption and employment in the country a cause of the health crisis.

The opinion, which creates the Fund for the Prevention and Attention of the Emergency, was approved by the Plenary of the Lower House with 265 votes in favor, 10 against and five abstentions, and was sent to the Senate of the Republic for its analysis and eventual ratification.

However, at this day's session, opposition legislators from the PAN (National Action Party) and the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) were absent, protesting the non-suspension of activities in the face of the crisis by COVID-19.

 

The project was approved by the Morena deputies, the party of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and with a majority in Congress, as well as the PT (Labor Party), PES (Social Meeting Party) and the PVEM (Green Ecological Party of Mexico) ).

In the opinion, various provisions of the Federal Law on Budget and Fiscal Responsibility and the Federal Law on Public Debt are reformed and it was approved "fast track", without being ruled by the United Commissions of Finance and Public Credit and Budget and Public Account, to which it had taken turns for opinion.

This is because, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was decided to speed up the legislative procedures in Congress to submit the proposals without having to go through the normal legislative process, something that was consulted before the Plenary and approved during the same session.
The MC coordinator, Tonatiuh Bravo, was one of the legislators who spoke out against the
The MC coordinator, Tonatiuh Bravo, was one of the legislators who spoke out against the "fast track" in the Chamber of Deputies (Photo: Graciela López / Cuartoscuro)

This caused protests among the deputies of Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), the only opposition party that decided to attend Wednesday's session. Tonatiuh Bravo, the head of the caucus, protested the lack of legislative processes, including discussion in plenary.

For their part, the Morenoites reproached MC for being the members of the PAN and the PRI who, with their legislative absence, under the pretext of the coronavirus, were not present to carry out the discussion and eventual approval.

The mechanism approved by the deputies opens a mechanism so that when economic conditions change due to an emergency, such as the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government can access additional resources in an agile way, according to Mario Delgado, coordinator of the Morenoite caucus.

 

The Fund may contain resources of up to 180,733 million pesos and is a "novel mechanism that does not exist in Mexican public finances," according to Delgado. President López Obrador will be able to send Congress a proposal to obtain this financing. But It must first be approved by the Senate.

The opinion details that the Executive will be able to use the funds "to face emergencies that may put broad sectors of the po[CENSORED]tion or the economy at risk," and would also allow the López Obrador administration to contract public debt for the same reasons. .
The absence of the PAN legislators was noted in the San Lázaro compound (Photo: Cuartoscuro)
The absence of the PAN legislators was noted in the San Lázaro compound (Photo: Cuartoscuro)

And it is that in Mexico the number of cases of COVID-19 increased to 93, reported the Ministry of Health (SSa) in the last official cut. The agency confirmed that 2% are considered serious and require further evaluation.

In our country, 61% of cases are male, the youngest patient is 18 years old and the oldest is 80 years old. The current status of the 93 positive cases in at least 19 states of the country is as follows: 86% were ambulatory and did not require hospitalization. Of the 12 to 14% that did require hospitalization, 9% remained stable.