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| SEGOB Miguel Osorio Chong |
Rantburg.com
Mexico's Secretaria de Gobernacion (SEGOB), or interior minister, Miguel Osorio Chong is expected to meet with Mexican national deputies Friday to explain why police certifications are not nearing completion, according to Mexican news accounts.
Earlier in the month, it was learned that only 63 percent of all state and local police nationwide have been certified, despite a looming November 1st deadline.
According to a news report which appeared Saturday in Milenio news daily, Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) coordinator for the Chamber of Deputies Guillermo Anaya said Saturday that legislators expect SEGOB Osorio Chong to explain why the deadline won't be met.
The police certification program, begun under the previous national administration of Felipe Calderon Hinojosa was to be complete by December of 2012, but that deadline was extended to November 1st of this year.
Since December, 2012, Osorio Chong has made it very clear he was aware of the deadline which specifies that all police at all three levels would either be certified or lose their jobs.
The certification program includes tests including psychological, drug and confidence tests which are meant to determine a police agent's suitability to become a police officer.
Results have been mixed. The lion's share of national police have already been certified while many states have lagged behind, some way behind.
For example, the tiny central Mexico state of Colima says 98 percent of its police are certified while the northern border state of Tamaulipas is barely above 40 percent.
Osorion Chong's role in the certification program is read. A large amount of the states' and municipalities' security budgets are provided by the national government either as direct funding or as pass though programs where taxes and fees collected by states and municipalities are returned to the states and municipalities.
According to the Milenio article, concerns with members of the Chamber of Deputies became apparent when President Enrique Pena Nieto's 2014 economic package failed to address security. The package released three weeks ago addresses a restructuring of federal taxes, including a proposal to scrap the flat tax on businesses and a proposal to goose up the top rates on income taxes. Both of those proposals are likely job killing measures.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com. His latest work of non-fiction, The Wounded Eagle: Volume 2 went on sale September 1st at Amazon.com and Smashwords.com