If something does not suit an autonomous institution with as much prestige as the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) it is that its independence from the overwhelming Executive power of our country is called into question.
Come on, it is a fact that any number of autonomous organizations, state governments and even the Congress of the Union have gone awry in order to privilege the unique vision of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
But among the institutions that are key for this country to maintain some level of credibility and aspire to overcome these difficult times are the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, the Bank of Mexico and the Inegi.
In the field of economic-financial institutions, Banxico has lost a necessary role, but no one can question the fact that it maintains its independence in monetary policy decision-making.
But the Inegi has received well-founded questions about its full autonomy that should not give rise to the suspicion that it works to disguise poor government performance.
The first unquestionable impact on the work of this institute came from the budgetary side.
The favorite instrument of the López Obrador regime to end the autonomous bodies is the drought of resources. The Inegi has suffered a systematic budget cut since this regime began, which has implied a reduction in its ability to measure Mexico.
Very important projects such as the agricultural census, the child labor survey or the survey on the consumption of psychotropic substances have been lost, so much so that the regime has just recognized that it is not clear about the number of people in Mexico who consume fentanyl.
Just this past Monday, the disappearance of two more indicators was reported in the Official Gazette, the data from the Educational Information and Management System, as well as all the information on people with HIV in Mexico.
The list of studies that the Inegi no longer does today is very long and it is a fact that in all the lost measurements there would be a very bad comparison of the López Obrador government with previous administrations.
It is inevitable that the loss of information and the consequent opacity does not generate suspicion in the eyes of a government that, we know, does not like transparency. But there is always the way out of explaining everything due to the lack of budget.
But, in that of reasonable doubts, the deputy governor of the Bank of Mexico, Jonathan Heath, posted a tweet with this message: “It is difficult to understand how industrial production can increase 0.7% when construction decreases -0.2% and manufacturing falls -0.5 %. Something is not right here.”
He himself gives a statistical explanation of which he himself is not entirely convinced, but the fact that one of the most prominent experts in macroeconomic information in Mexico has doubts about the INEGI information does no good, starting with the certainty that Inegi himself must give.
Your website lost accessibility for key information. In short, the Inegi must be 100% reliable or it can be discarded as a source of information.
There should be no room for the suspicion that the untrue statements of each morning can be transferred to the temple of reliable information from the Inegi.
