Last Tuesday, November 25, the President Claudia Sheinbaum issued the Internal Regulations of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commissionpublished in the Official Gazette of the Federation.
The regulation states that its objective is to establish the organization and operation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commissionas well as determining the structure and powers that each of its Administrative Units must exercise.
With its publication, the regulation takes effect and the Commission is now operational, but the information on what its budget is for the end of the year and how much there will be for 2026 is information that is opaque.
The document describes what the legal reform established when the autonomous body disappeared, that the new Commission will be a decentralized administrative body of the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency.
Although it is no longer an autonomous body, it is indicated that the CRT It will have technical, operational and management independence, and will be “impartial in issuing resolutions.”
Its objective, it is indicated, is to guarantee the efficient development of telecommunications and radio broadcasting, in the terms established by the Constitution, the Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting and other applicable legal provisions.
“The Commission is responsible for the regulation, promotion and supervision of the use, exploitation and exploitation of the radio spectrum, orbital resources, satellite communication, space services and their applications, space sustainability, public telecommunications networks, passive infrastructure services and the provision of telecommunications and broadcasting services, as well as the deployment and access to active and passive infrastructure and other essential inputs, in the terms established by the Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting and other legal provisions. applicable”, it is specified.
The reform that disappeared IFT left in the National Antitrust Commissionattached to the Ministry of Economythe powers of competition in telecommunications and not in the CRT.
Without a clear budget to start its functions in 2006, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission It will have a broad bureaucratic structure, similar to the one that existed in the IFT.
With five commissioners, the administrative units of the Presidency are planned, with its Technical Secretariat of the Plenary Session; a Technical Secretariat and six Executive Directorates of Institutional Linkage; Social Communication; International Affairs; Projects and Institutional Operation; Indicators, and Infrastructure and Development.
In addition, 13 General Directorates of Concessions, Authorizations and Registrations are planned; Regulatory Policy; Promotion of Infrastructure and Implementation of Asymmetric Measures; Radio Spectrum and Orbital Resources; Spectrum Tenders; Compliance Monitoring; Asymmetric Regulation Surveillance; Surveillance and Verification; Sanctions; Hearings and Prospective; Legal; Planning; and Administration and Finance.
The former deputy María Elena Pérez-Jaén accuses that the continuity of the National Transparency Platformbecause by 2026 only 25 million pesos were assigned to the new body Transparency for the People.
It highlights that this amount of money is not even enough to maintain the Platform or pay the operating costs.
“The 25 million are not going to be enough to maintain the National Transparency Platform. What they are trying to do with this is to make the Platform inoperative,” denounces the former citizen commissioner at the Institute. of Access to Public Information of the Federal District (INFODF).
In an interview, Pérez-Jaén Zermeño considers that the budgetary strangulation of institutions that are uncomfortable for the Government and that guarantee citizens’ rights continues.
Question how it is possible that Mexico went from having a National Institute of Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) to a decentralized body called Transparency for the Peoplewith only 25 million pesos to be exercised in 2026.
“They are crumbs, just the HENNA I had a billion pesos and now, Transparency for the People They only give you 25 million for 2026.
“They are trying, first, to strangle, to diminish these institutions and to strangle the rights they protect, so that they do not fulfill their powers,” he believes.
María Elena Pérez-Jaén warns that after the disappearance of the HENNAthe platform deteriorates day after day.
“The importance of the National Transparency Platform is that it concentrates all the historical information on the transparency of more than 800 obligated subjects.
“It is the nerve center of government transparency, that is where all the responses to citizens’ requests are and by strangling the platform budgetarily it also kills its maintenance, the hosting of all the historical information, that is why 25 million pesos are not enough at all, the National Transparency Platform It is a monster of information, information that must be protected and also updated,” he explains.
It highlights that the National Transparency Platform is failing, because it is beginning to have many deficiencies as a result of the fact that in the middle of the year the HENNA.
It is evident, he says, that updated transparency information is no longer uploaded and that when there is any information that should be public, backup locks are immediately placed on it.
“Really, if you try to enter, the page tells you that it is not working. You try and you can’t enter, they are killing the platform,” he describes.
In his opinion, the objective is to discourage people from exercising their right of access to information and demand that the Government comply with its obligation to transparency.
“Every time there is news that involves transparency, they immediately put the locks on it, just as this man did Pepín (López Obrador) with your asset declaration, which is an obligation of a public servant. He already lowered it, of course, although this is a competition for the state of Tabascothis is how they act when something is uncomfortable for them,” says Pérez-Jaén, about one of the brothers of the former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
It stands out that practically all federal agencies avoid making the use of public resources or information on contracts transparent.
There they are, he assures, the secretariats of National defensethat of Marinathat of Public Safety and that of Governoratealong with the National guard and the National Secretariat of Public Securitygiving incomplete information and reserving data.
“With the requests that arrive, they reserve or do not provide complete data, and thus they are discouraging people from asking for information,” he maintains.
Consider that with the allocation of only 25 million pesos to Transparency for the Peoplein it Budget of the Anti-Corruption and Good Government Secretariatshows what the real commitment of the Presidency of Claudia Sheinbaum with transparency.
“It is not something with which the President agrees or has empathy, on the contrary, she has a very great animosity Claudia Sheinbaum with transparency. These assignments are made by the Treasury, it is the one that makes these types of decisions. That is the interest, the commitment, that they are demonstrating with transparency,” he claims.
Consider that with a body without resources to operate as the HENNA The circle is closing to increasingly reduce the transparency of the Government, which began with budget cuts, an incomplete plenary session in the Institute and legal reforms to eliminate the governing body.
“We all know, transparency remains in their speeches, but in reality, through facts, it is to strangle these rights of access to information,” explains Pérez-Jaén, who has resorted on several occasions to requests for information to follow up on government actions, compare official data and denounce acts of corruption.
“What we are seeing is a shame,” he says.
He adds that in addition to letting the National Transparency Platformthere was no longer any efficiency in the resources for reviewing the responses of the obligated entities.
“The resolutions are being resolved poorly. Well, before one could say when faced with a denial of information, ‘if they don’t answer me, I’ll go for protection’, but now with the way this Judicial Branch is, what do we do?”
Remember that the HENNA It was not a body that responded to requests, but rather its plenary session resolved on challenges made by individuals regarding the responses given by the obligated entities.
The mandatory information and responses to open the Government data, remember, is what protects the National Transparency Platformwhich was operated by HENNA.
“The control, administration and payment of its operation, of the hosting of the information, was held by the HENNAthat is why the 25 million will not be enough to maintain the platform.
“The National Transparency Platform It was the heart, the brain, the engine of the HENNA“, he remarked.
He Federal Telecommunications Institute It suffered a slow budgetary agony, before coming to an end as an autonomous body last October.
Once the constitutional reform that decreed its extinction was approved, in the Federation Expenditure Budget For the 2025 financial year, it was assigned a budget of only 500 million pesos, when it had requested 1,680 million.
The Institute’s payroll covered almost one billion pesos, so the amount of 500 million was insufficient to cover human resources expenses.
Sources of the extinct IFT They explained that with the reform that established the end of the autonomous body and with the budget cut, internally it was decided to end 99 percent of the staff’s payroll contracts and leave a small reserve even for travel expenses for the servers who had the function of making notifications, and for any publication that had to be made.
The amount approved by the Chamber of Deputies was enough to cover the payroll of the institution until the first half of July, without the secondary law that would give life to the new body, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.
In these conditions, the IFT It was supposed to continue operating, but there were no longer budget resources.
With the new laws on telecommunications and competition, approved in a special period of sessions at the end of June, resources were made available from the trust held by the IFTfor 1,500 million pesos, to cover human resources expenses, essentially with which settlements and bonuses were covered.
It was also established that the IFT could receive 3.5 percent of concession payments for use of the radio spectrum.
This concept was paid until the last payroll, on October 16 of this year, which meant the date of “death” of the IFT.
Before the end of the Institute, the federal government sent the Chamber of Deputies the project of Federation Expenditure Budgeton September 8.
There was no longer a budget request for the IFT and no recourse was considered for the new Telecommunications Regulatory Commissionwithin the budget of the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency.