Using tourism to teach Mexicans about corruption

The Corruptour has its own take on the capital’s monuments

THE Estela de Luz (“stele of light”) is not one of Mexico City’s glories. The 104-metre (341-foot) tower, built from panels of quartz, was supposed to celebrate the bicentennial of Mexico’s independence from Spain in 2010. But it was inaugurated in 2012, 16 months later than planned, and cost 1.3bn pesos ($100m) to build, more than treble its original budget. The federal government paid the bill. Eight former officials involved in the tower’s construction were arrested after its completion.

The delay and cost overruns earned the tower a place on the “Corruptour”, a new twice-a-week bus tour that shows off the capital’s monuments to graft, fraud and mismanagement. There are plenty of them. Tourists board a converted school bus, stripped of its roof and emblazoned with tabloid-style headlines, and visit ten sights, or nine when the traffic is bad. They include the Balderas metro station in the city’s centre. A recorded commentary tells the saga of the metro system’s Line 12. Its stations were so shoddily built that half of them had to close temporarily.

The bus pulls up at the institute of social security, Mexico’s third-biggest public-sector purchaser of goods and services. The taped commentary explains that, according to a report in 2011, the institute was paying a third more than it should because its suppliers colluded with each other. (It has since improved its procurement practices.) The stop outside the interior ministry is an occasion to talk about impunity. The ministry is responsible for the maximum-security prison from which Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, a drug kingpin, escaped in 2015, down a tunnel dug from the shower in his cell. That led to the arrest of 13 officials. Mr Guzmán was eventually recaptured and extradited to the United States.

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Eduardo from All About Playa

Eduardo from All About Playa

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