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Among politicians and businessmen, the appropriation of the resource is a systematic problem
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Mexico City.- Researchers warned that water control in Mexico was concentrated for years on a small group of large private users and political figures who, taking advantage of permissive legislation, extracted enormous volumes without fully covering their obligations.
The analyzes showed that only 3,304 dealers, equivalent to 1.1% of users, monopolized more than 22% of the concessioned water by extracting more than one million cubic meters annually. Among them were soft drink, agricultural, mining, and steel companies, as well as hotels, airports, and even federal agencies.
The researcher Elena Burns He pointed out that the majority of industrial and service use was not even declared or paid duties. He indicated that 80% of the volume concessioned for industrial and service use is not being declared nor are rights being paid and specified that, although 56 billion pesos should have been received, only 12 billion were paid.
The deputy Alfonso Ramirez Cuellar He stated that part of the problem fell on members of the political class, whom he described as “true predators” of water. It was documented that former governors and families with influence in different states received agricultural concessions, a use exempt from payment, which allowed them to exploit already overloaded aquifers. In Zacatecas, Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo León, Aguascalientes, Jalisco and Guanajuato, cases of this type were recorded, including figures who were active in various parties or who held state and federal positions.
Academic studies also revealed that large corporations took advantage of the absence of legal limits to accumulate concessions through relatives and partners. This scheme made it easier for companies in the food and mining sectors to concentrate enormous volumes of extraction, putting pressure on regions where overexploitation forced communities to depend on insufficient or contaminated water.