Businessman Carlos Slim speaks during a press conference about Mexico's airport construction on April 16, 2018 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Carlos Tischler/NurPhoto/Sipa USA). PA images, All rights reserved.The construction of the new Mexico City airport has been marketed by the Mexican government as a model of transparency. The infrastructure project is an improvement in Mexico’s long history of public sector opaqueness and corruption. The government run airport website has whole sections dedicated to transparency, including the publication of contracts, and information about finance structures.
But behind this squeaky clean veneer lies a web of secrets and unpublished information, suggesting it is business as usual for public projects in Mexico.
To start with, the finance structure of the new airport lends to secrecy which, in turn, facilitates corruption and the misuse of public resources. Investments are held in trusts – a structure used in Mexico to manage public funds. Of the four trusts created to manage the investments, two are private trusts which receive private investments made up of loans to the Mexican government. These trusts are cloaked in mystery. Unlike public trusts, private trusts have no obligation to report their activities and no accountability mechanisms.
