AMLO: Government Finds Scam in Public Daycares 97 Thousand Ghost Children, No Record of Them Existing

[ MEXICO ] Among the irregularities found in the census were Public daycare that were either not longer open, or their registered address were nonexistent homes where the streets did not corresponded to the townships’ name.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador withdrew the direct financial payment to the children’s Public Daycares because they did not receive the money or arrived very little would arrived due to embezzlement from the federal sub-agencies and the Public Daycares.

When presenting the results of the census of the children’s public daycare program, the Mexico’s Welfare Secretary informed that of the universe of 310,617 children registered in the registrar, 31.2 percent were not physically located, and tris is due to embezzlement tactics found in several irregularities detected by the government.

In a conference, the undersecretary, Ariadna Montiel, explained that there was a reduction in the registry of registered mothers, fathers or guardians, going from 296,959 to 203,262; in the case of financial benefited children it was reduced from 310,617 to 213,437.

“There is a catalog of given reasons why they were not located and incorporated into the registry, mainly because the domiciles are non-existent; 93 thousand parents or guardians could not be verified,” said Montiel.

She explained that in the case of minors, 97,180 were not found during a census that took place from March 1 to 17 and this is due to the following inconsistencies:

• Non-existent addresses
• Registration of people in a municipality with data from another entity.
• People who do not live in registered homes.
• Headlines with registration of children in different entities.
• Children who do not attend or who stopped attending the stay in 2018.
• Stays without operation since 2018.
• Changes of address not reported.

“There have been inconsistencies. The points that we find permanently and the great part is due to the inconsistency that there are streets that do not correspond to colonies. That happened in the 32 entities,” said Montiel..

In this way, the Support Program for the Children’s Welfare for Working Mothers will benefit 213,437 children under four years of age with bimonthly grants of $1,600 pesos; nevertheless, of that universe, 3,372 children with disabilities will receive $3,600 pesos directly, I’m without intermediaries this time.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of Welfare, Maria Luisa Albroes, said that the changes in the program do not mean the closure of the Public Daycares, since they can continue to work, as long as the daycares can guarantee the safety of the children.

In 2005 a daycare there was run poorly killed 100 babies in a fire.

Miss. Albores explained that the modifications to the program seek to bring order in terms of responsibility for the the daycare, since one of the problems detected is that the then Ministry of Social Development (Sedesol) was not allowed to close Daycares even if there were irregularities, which should change.

“We found that the children public Daycare supervisory mechanism for the care of children is done by the DIF, and that inspection Daycare facilities’ safety was done by the municipality’s PC, because it was seen as a commercial space,” Albores said.

Meanwhile, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated that children’s stays will not be closed, but that all support to beneficiaries will be customized to avoid abuse and corruption in the management of resources.

“If we put this issue in context it must be said that it has generated a lot of controversy, it was mentioned, repeatedly as a campaign that we were canceling the stays, and thus remained in the collective imagination that the rooms were canceled, that is not true,” Albores said.