Morning press conference live. Tuesday, September 22, 2026 | President Claudia Sheinbaum

With your permission, Madam President. Good morning to all of you. Well, as you know, the Secretariat of Good Government is a cross-cutting secretariat. We work in a coordinated manner with the different secretariats. It is a more internal task that has to do with how we monitor and supervise the actions of public servants. Next slide, please. This matters a great deal because when government acts well, it builds trust. So it is important to tell you that, to begin with, Mexico ranks fifth among OECD countries with the highest citizen trust in the national government, after Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Luxembourg. And it also ranks eighth in trust in the public service at the national level. Next slide, please. It is important to say that in this administration, the focus given to the secretariat placed a very strong emphasis on prevention. Why? Because we consider that prevention produces better results for all the people, for all Mexicans, because not only is money not spent in the wrong or mistaken way, but it is corrected in very good time, and moreover, time is not lost in applying it better. In these two years of government, the secretariat has managed to participate in generating prevention savings of nearly 84 billion pesos. And where do those 84 billion pesos come from? Well, from improvements in public procurement strategies. When we sit down in open dialogue with the suppliers already provided for in the law, in the strategic dialogues, competition is much more open and the improvement of technical annexes and government requirements is clearer, so that the limitation and participation of suppliers cannot be skewed or restricted. In procurement strategies, we have managed to save 29 billion pesos. The other is very specific follow-up of public contracts, especially those that have many complications, which are public works contracts, where later the work is a bit more unpredictable and cost adjustments are made. So there we bring follow-up strategies, also with specialists, on how to have unit costs, see what applies and what does not, and there the savings have generated 42 billion pesos by preventing overcharges or some mistaken estimate from being paid. On the other hand, in the efficiency of the organizational structure of government, we have already saved 7,800 million pesos, which is when President Claudia Sheinbaum took office, she ordered and instructed a reorganization of the entire government, a restructuring, and the structures were compacted and made more efficient. And on the other hand, the follow-up of fines and sanctions for all public servants and suppliers who have sanctions has given us 4,800 million. In total, 84 billion pesos. How is this done? Next slide, please. An example of this is, for example, some purchases that IMSS made of medical equipment. IMSS made one of the largest historical purchases of medical equipment this year. It was modernized. What did we do there? We accompanied IMSS so that the competition would be on a level playing field. All the manufacturers meet, they discuss the technologies, and they know each other's models very well. So we can discuss the models so that they don't say, sometimes the prices are lower, but the model is from 10 or 15 years ago, right? So we put them at the table at the same time, the competition starts to press, everyone says, this is what we have at the technology level, which can be competitive. And everyone says, this is the technology floor. And from here on, we compete on prices. What does this lead us to? To having more advanced technology, but at more competitive prices. What was the achievement at the end of the day? We achieved savings, a purchase of the equipment 46% lower, but with cutting-edge technology. So that is a win-win for the government. Next slide, please. Another thing that has been worked on a great deal is an approach, and here also by instructions of the President, in 2024 we began to work on changes to the procurement law and the rules were changed so that large suppliers and small ones could participate, because large suppliers are not the same as small ones. Small ones do not have the large law firms or administrators to bid in government. So different norms were made, different rules of the game for small businesses, for MSMEs and cooperatives. This has allowed entry, for example, in the sale of coffee, now directly the purchase from the producers. With that we managed to bring in 5,000 families from the states of Chiapas, Puebla, and Oaxaca through cooperatives, where there is already a framework agreement with 66 institutions to buy directly from the producers 70 tons of coffee. This leads us to having, on the one hand, cheaper prices, but the producer, the manufacturer who is last in the chain always had the lowest prices. So now he can sell his product at a fairer price. For us it is also competitive, and currently there are already 10 coffee cooperatives selling to the government. The same was worked on with cleaning services. The cleaning services were also worked on so that the employees who sometimes were not paid, who were not given social security, who were delayed, would get together, form their cooperatives, and those same cooperatives would provide the service. We already have five cleaning cooperatives with more than 600 people, and they have an additional incentive because they not only dedicate themselves to working, but they work in their own business because they are the members of the cooperatives. That also gives a different income to MSMEs, to the government, and to the cooperatives. The same was worked on with the textile part. Textiles, as you know, is a sector that has been hit hard lately and generates many jobs in many families. So meetings were also held with cooperatives and small producers to see what their offers were, what they were dedicated to, and what the government could buy from them. DIF already made a purchase aimed only at small and medium-sized enterprises to buy uniforms, and right now there is currently a much larger purchase in process at IMSS that is also aimed at this part of the textile sector of MSMEs and cooperatives. And finally, no longer so small, but as a lever for development, as you know, a few months ago in August, the President issued an agreement for the strengthening of the steel industry that was linked to the Plan México. And in that sense, different working tables were already worked on with the private sector to know what the national steel supply is, what the government's requirements are, how we can interact together to improve both supply and demand and have greater consumption of national production and also change the national content rules to explicitly incorporate steel. And many advances were achieved, for example, for many years now, for water pipes, something called ductile iron is used, and that has been used for about 30 years and the requirements had not been updated. However, steel is now a better technology that works, it is cheaper, it is more resistant, requires less maintenance, and has a greater number of years of useful life. So we have a project that is now cheaper and that moreover the infrastructure can last almost twice as many years. So all this is achieved with this type of meetings. Next slide, please. And this is only possible if it goes hand in hand with the strengthening of public servants. Why? Because at the end of the day, in government, the ones who work are the public servants. That is why we work a great deal on providing training and preparing people, the public servants, to strengthen their principles of integrity and ethics. Currently, in this administration, an ethics and integrity course is mandatory for all public servants. We have a virtual school where many training courses are given for public servants on different subjects, particularly this one that I want to highlight, which is the part of ethics and integrity, and 1.3 million trainings have already been given in these two years. And finally, to say that as part of transparency and the commitment of the public servant to make their assets transparent, in 2026 we achieved the historical maximum of presentation of asset declarations in a timely and proper manner with 97.7% of public servants. That is a record figure historically. Next slide, please. As part of prevention, we also work with other institutions because we believe that prevention and ethics courses do not work when one is already an adult, but rather begin in early childhood. So we bring several programs together with the CP, one of which is called Semilleros de la Honestidad (Seeds of Honesty), which are for early childhood, which goes for preschool and primary school children, and by the end of this administration we have to reach and cover all of primary school. We are advancing year by year to produce complete generations with this Seeds of Honesty program that is worked on together with the CP. Additional materials are worked on that are found free of charge on different social networks and for parents and for teachers, and schools are visited to strengthen these types of values. Not only is it done for early childhood, for schools, but we also work with the Secretariat of Education, the Undersecretariat of Higher Education, to also bring it to young people, and with young people the program is called Rally Cero Corrupción (Zero Corruption Rally), and there more dynamic activities are also worked on with young people to promote these types of values, and it is worked on site. What entities have we visited as the Secretariat of Good Government? Baja California Sur, San Luis Potosí, Michoacán, Querétaro, Mexico City, Morelos, Tlaxcala, Puebla, and Tabasco. So in all these places there has already been a physical presence, and also as part of shared responsibility, not only with young people and children, we are also working on finding how the government can be better and more efficient every time and converge to international standards. For that we have a lot of work with international allies, different groups like the OECD, the World Bank, CEPAL, the OAS, to see what the best practices are in other countries and bring them to Mexico. And we also bring bilateral cooperation with several countries. For example, the Institute for the Training of Public Servants of France is very well recognized, and we are also trying to go hand in hand to work on projects jointly, and so in several subjects we are working internationally to raise our standards and also export what we are doing here in Mexico and what we are innovators in here in Mexico, also take it abroad. Next slide, please. And finally, as part of this preventive part of the Secretariat of Good Government, we have the issue of transparency. We have already absorbed the functions, 80% of the functions of INAI, because it was not 100%, it was 80%, among them is transparency. And in the transparency part, what corresponds to the decentralized body of transparency for the people is when those requests for some reason are not answered or are not answered satisfactorily and an appeal is filed to request clarification, this decentralized body participates and intervenes. Of all the appeals we have received, 8,220 have already been resolved in these two years. It is important to say that practically all appeals are admitted, that is, 82%. Before, the percentage of receipt of appeals was 70%, it was much lower. What have we done differently? We have call centers, telephone attention, and in-person attention that we guide both to the people who are going to present their request and to the public institutions. So we seek to make the question more efficient, more concrete, so that it is also clearer for the public servant and is not discarded at the first attempt. And moreover, when for some reason it is discarded because the question was not well understood or because the question is not well formulated, we work together with the agency and again we work with the person making the request to be able to find a prompt response. It is important to highlight that in what we have been doing with this task, only 14.6% of the appeals have been discarded. This is the lowest figure since 2014. That is, they had never been discarded so few. What does that mean? That the consultations come better formulated and also that the public servant is attending to the responses better. Of everything that has been attended to, 27% have been corrected, self-corrected directly by the institutions. 45% have been at the request of Transparency for the People. Next slide, please. And then comes the punitive part. Well, for those who did not want to behave well in the first call to attention, comes the second call to attention where sanctions come. And what are the sanctions? We have sanctions both for public servants and for third parties. Third parties can be individuals or they can be companies. Of the public servants we have 4,193 sanctioned public servants in this administration. The main causes of sanction for public servants are granting and/or authorizing improper payments, removing information that is safeguarded under their responsibility, which could include personal data. Authorizing payments for goods or services that were never delivered. Approving unnecessary purchases or making unnecessary unjustified purchases. Concealment of assets and patrimonial increases, falsification of documents, and sexual harassment and abuse. That is basically where the infractions are concentrated and where we have to place the emphasis on the non-compliance of public servants. Of these 4,193, 3,528 have been non-serious infractions and 665 serious infractions. We have also sent 1,737 public servants to the Federal Administrative Justice Tribunal. Why? Because we, as the Secretariat of Anti-Corruption and Good Government, cannot impose sanctions for serious infractions. We build the file, but by the Constitution we have to refer them to the tribunal so that it is the tribunal that sanctions them. All serious infractions are sent to the tribunal. Of those serious infractions, of the 1,737 that were sent to the tribunal, 87 have already been notified that they have been sanctioned and 1,650 are in process. Next slide, please. The other is the sanction of individuals, which are legal persons or natural persons. Of these, 286 legal persons have been sanctioned. What are the main infractions committed by these third parties? They present false documentation. Normally, in all the tenders they come and present false documentation, they fail to comply with their obligations. They already have the contract and do not deliver the goods or services on time or in form, or never deliver them. They presume, simulate technical experience, that is, they falsify their resume, that they have qualified personnel, that they have sufficient personnel, or that they have the economic capacity to attend a contract, an obligation, a commitment with the government. And the other is that they hide conflicts of interest. What is that? Well, at the end of the day, sometimes four or five companies arrive at tenders, they all quote, they quote very high, and it turns out that the five companies belong to the same owner. So, and they do not hide the conflict of interest from us, because you are not really seeing a tender, a competition, it is a simulation. Those are the things we mainly see, of which 286 have been sanctioned, 222 disqualified with a fine, 64 with only a fine, and in total sanctions have been imposed for 147.3 million pesos. We also have some files for individuals at the tribunal, that is, when an individual, a third party, is linked or becomes an accomplice of a public servant, they go together in the file to the Administrative Justice Tribunal. There we have 33 individuals who have been referred to the Federal Administrative Justice Tribunal and currently none has been sanctioned yet, they are all in process. And in the matter of personal data, also with the transfer of some of INAI's attributes to the Secretariat of Anti-Corruption and Good Government, we absorbed the data protection part. In the case of data protection, in this period we have sanctioned 51 individuals with fines of up to 118.5 million pesos. Next slide. These are administrative infractions, but some administrative infractions are also criminal offenses. Well, crimes. So they also go not only to the tribunals to receive their corresponding administrative sanction, but the complaints are also sent to the Attorney General's Office to proceed criminally against them. In this two-year period, 517 complaints have been filed against public servants, of which 53 have been linked to a proceeding. What are the main crimes we observe when we send the complaints to the prosecutor's office? Illicit enrichment, illicit use of attributes and faculties, operations with resources of illicit origin, fraud, illicit exercise of public service, and embezzlement. Next slide. We want to share three examples. There are more in the government report, but three examples of what the Secretariat of Anti-Corruption and Good Government more or less does. For example, this is a case from the Secretariat of Public Function, of public security, specifically when the Federal Police still existed. In 2015, an intelligence service was contracted. They wanted to develop a system for some intelligence services that cost $130,000,000. The contract was signed for 130,000. It is a contract that goes through national security and subsequently they manage from those 130,000 million dollars. They request 65 million dollars that come out as national security expenses that supposedly should have gone to this contract. The money does come out, but the contract is not paid. So there, what is proven? Abuse of functions and diversion of resources. Sanctions of 15 and 20 years of disqualification have already been issued against the former head of the Intelligence Division and the former Secretary General of the Federal Police. This is at the administrative level and also the repair of the damage is being requested, which is the 65 million dollars. In parallel, the complaint was also made to the Attorney General's Office and it is currently in process in both places. Next slide, please. These are other cases that we have worked on with the institutions in 2025, worked jointly with SADER, and a contract was identified for production and packaging services of a little more than 2,000 tons of beans. The contract was located at 80 million pesos and 73.6 million pesos was paid in advance. In itself, that is already an irregularity because services are paid once they are rendered. Services are never paid in advance. They were paid in advance and the service was never provided. So there, what is proven is the improper payment of 73.6 million pesos and the failure to deliver the services. The matter is serious. It is referred to the Federal Administrative Justice Tribunal for abuse of functions and diversion of resources. In this case, nine public servants and one individual, the supplier, are involved, and in parallel a criminal complaint is also filed. In this case, it is also in both the tribunal and the Attorney General's Office in its investigation process. Next slide, please. Another emblematic case also jointly with the medical direction of IMSS, and there it was worked in 2025, a complaint was filed. People were observed participating in a warehouse and were relabeling boxes of medications. Most of these relabeled items are oncological. Both public servants and external people were located, people who were the supplier of that medication that was being relabeled, and moreover the facilities were of a private party because it is a rented warehouse. So there is no justification for relabeling medications, much less in a public warehouse and much less without documentation and without the public and private sectors participating. So in 2025 a criminal complaint is filed against public servants and the individual and whoever else may be found responsible. And in February 2026 the serious administrative infraction for abuse of functions and patrimonial damage is completed and this is in the tribunal. These two cases are also in the tribunal for the administrative part and in the Attorney General's Office for the criminal part. And these are just three examples, because there are many cases but relevant ones of more or less what the conduct is, how we identify them, how we work jointly in many cases with the institutions to find the infraction and sanction it. And when they are serious, normally what we do is build the files and file the complaint and present them to the Federal Administrative Justice Tribunal and the Attorney General's Office so that they continue with the investigations. Next slide, please. And with that, well, I can tell you that this is what we are doing in these two years and to highlight that although it is true that we have sanctioned and you saw some of the relevant examples, the largest amount of money is observed in prevention, which is the nearly 84 billion pesos. So timely complaints serve us a great deal. Why? Because they help us prevent the act from being committed. So when we participate before the crime is committed, we manage to save the money and that money is not wasted and we can direct it to things the government really needs and that the people need. So, and there we also leave on the screen the data for Denuncias MX, because you can report by phone, by email, in person, anonymously, with identification, etc. They give you many facilities, there is data protection so that you can also help us be more efficient and give better results in the matter of anti-corruption. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, Shaila Rosagel, correspondent for Grupo Hili, El Imparcial de Sonora, La Crónica de Mexicali and Tijuana, Frontera de Tijuana. I want to ask you, Madam President, what are the main investment items in the economic package you sent for 2027, for Baja California and for Sonora? And if you can tell us the exact day you will be on your tour there in Sonora this weekend.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Jorge Chaparro from Meganoticias. Madam President, I want to ask you, there have been some demonstrations by doctors in Veracruz warning about the lack of supplies. In that same state there was a measles outbreak at the oncology hospital. Unfortunately two people died, a 10-year-old girl and a 22-year-old young man. And yesterday we learned of, ah, well, and in the same state of Veracruz, the governor says that there is supply in some places of 90% and in others of 60%. And yesterday we learned of a truly worrying case, the death of five newborn babies in Durango. I want to ask you what is happening, because you have told us, unfortunately the health cabinet did not come, but the cabinet has insisted that there is sufficient supply, that there are doctors, that there are supplies, that there are, and today we are seeing at least one governor who already recognizes the shortage and we see protests by doctors across the country.

Madam President, is there an intention to keep the IMSS-Bienestar delegate in Veracruz?

And in this case, if you'll allow me, is there already any complaint against this official in Anti-Corruption? Are you already investigating this Veracruz matter?

In the case of Veracruz, as well as some others, when they mention very specific events and names of public servants, and the President has already commented on other occasions, we ex officio open a file and we follow up on it.

So far, could you give us some information about this file, no?

Right now we are in the investigation process.

Okay. Madam President, you did not build Line 12 of the metro, but you had to face the problem of the collapse. You did not build the Maya Train, but you have had to face these incidents. You did not build the Interoceanic Train and you had to face the derailment. You did not build Dos Bocas and there have already been at least two fires there. The question in concrete is, why is no action taken against those responsible for those works, who would indeed be the ones who should answer to Mexican society? And I also want to ask you if Anti-Corruption and Good Government has any open line against public officials who have participated in these works, and even more so, the problem of fuel theft is one of the biggest in the country and we don't know if Anti-Corruption is investigating any collusion of authorities from Pemex or from some other entity. The customs, for example, we don't know if it has an open investigation in this sense, I want to ask you why no action is taken against these responsible parties from the past.

In the case of Anti-Corruption, do you have any open line in any of these cases I have mentioned?

Yes, but that goes... I was asking about the administrative line, if there is any investigation against officials or former officials who have participated, who have colluded, who have, I don't know, that is, if there is any evidence against them in this sense, I want to ask if there are lines of investigation.

In the particular case of Pemex, we have to remember that Pemex has its own regulations, it is not subject to all the matters like any other secretariat. It has its own regulations, they are regulated by the Board of Directors. What participation do we have with Pemex? We participate when there are public servants effectively involved, and the audit areas of Pemex, the Board of Directors sends us the information of the alleged responsible parties who are public servants. In the case, for example, well not of fuel theft, but of other actions or activities, let's say, administrative infractions of Pemex, we even already have the application of precautionary measures for three officials who are linked to spill issues, for example. So there are already three cases, for example, very concrete ones of separation from office for participation in spills and everything that comes to us from the areas of Pemex, from officials, an investigation file is opened and it is followed and it is attended to as it is investigated. If we have open cases. Customs. Customs is indeed perfectly within. Like all, like all the secretariats, all the secretariats have open reviews. That is, we work not only with an annual audit plan that reviews absolutely the entire secretariat, but we also work with complaints. So the answer is yes. Yes there are in all cases. If we have in the case of Pemex, we even have three separations from office in issues linked to spills, and in the case of customs we also bring investigations. We also bring investigations, for example, in the case of SAT, right now we are bringing some investigations with some companies, for example, that are private companies that give services to SAT, but that are authorizing invoice issuers to issue invoices when they have already been declared invoice issuers. Quickly their authorization to issue invoices is revoked and the investigation proceeds, but in all cases we have open investigations.

Excuse me, Secretary, you did not refer directly to the case of fuel theft. In the case of fuel theft specifically, do you not have any?

When a complaint about a public servant comes to us, we attend to it. If not, no. What there are are the complaints that Pemex has directly with the Attorney General's Office, which are of a criminal nature. They send them to us when they want us to proceed administratively. Many times for administrative efficiency or for work efficiency, let's say, for workload, when you have an administrative infraction and a criminal one, many opt, we opt to go the criminal route because the sanction is more serious, it is more delicate and action is taken in a more energetic and exemplary way. And this punishment for the same person is much less than the criminal one. That is why many of the cases do not reach us, because Pemex's legal department presents them directly to the prosecutor's office and takes them through the criminal route.

Okay. So it's true.

In the case of fuel theft there are also detainees. Even in the investigation, if there were a person from Pemex involved in this process, the complaint would be filed. So far no person within Pemex has been found to be involved in the fuel theft.

Okay. President, finally I would like to ask you, a few days ago I heard statements from Malu that worried me because Malu is a very, very intelligent person and, well, her work is recognized, but she says that the pensions and the scholarships and all these federal government programs are not paid with resources that we Mexicans contribute. She says they come from savings and from somewhere else. Specifically, I'd like to ask you: has the debt doubled compared to what it was in 2017? Is this real? First, and second, how much of the debt is financing these pensions? And if that's not the case, what is the debt being used for? Why is the debt growing so much?