Cost-cutting hampered Mexican recovery efforts after quake, government officials say
Mexico City — Spending cuts and a failure by Mexico’s president to upgrade an earthquake alert system hurt life-saving prevention programmes and amplified recovery costs after two major temblors in September, current and former government officials said. Although President Enrique Pena Nieto is eager to show a prompt and competent response to the earthquakes, which killed more than 430 people, the budget of recovery agencies is threadbare due to cost-cutting by his administration. Pena Nieto, an unpopular centrist struggling to get a successor from his party or an ally elected president next July, on Wednesday acknowledged the problem, urging legislators to boost funding in the 2018 budget. "The reconstruction needs more resources," he said. The government has slashed disaster budgets by as much as 50% in recent years, part of a broader cost-cutting effort to make up for shortfalls caused by a drop in oil revenues, which finance about 20% of Mexico’s federal budget. The 2017 budget ...
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