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Pemex’s union leaders in Tabasco purchased hundreds of tickets for the presidential plane raffle and they are now gifting them to employees. Moreover, when a Pemex workers request a loan for over MXN 20,000, the state-owned company gifts them a lottery ticket .
Furthermore, the oil company is urging its employees to purchase lottery tickets through institutional e-mails.
Lottery tickets at Pemex
Antonio works at Pemex, in an area controlled by former lawmaker José del Pilar Córdova Hernández.
The Pemex union asked him and his colleagues to attend a meeting where each of them received a lottery ticket. According to President López Obrador, authorities will announce the winners of September 15.
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Antonio told EL UNIVERSAL that union leaders told them they were giving them raffle tickets “to help the President. (…) I know that those who have a good relationship with the bosses received up to five tickets.”
Another Pemex employee said the workers received five lottery tickets each. However, in case one of them wins one of the MXN 20 million prizes, the winner must share the money with his colleagues.
There are six branches of Pemex’s union in Tabasco , divided into several areas: the 48th branch covers Reforma, Chiapas; the 44th section is based in Villahermosa; the 50th is located in Paraíso, Tabasco; the 26th section controls Cárdenas, Tabasco and Las Choapas, Veracruz, and the 14th section is based in Ciudad Pemex, Macuspana.
It is clear that only two union branches have bought and gifted lottery tickets to Pemex employees; nevertheless, sources said other union branches could have done the same to support President López Obrador.
When EL UNIVERSAL asked Pemex’s union branches in Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo León regarding the lottery tickets, they denied gifting them to their employees.
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Promoting the lottery tickets inside Pemex
It seems like the Pemex union is not the only one promoting the sale of lottery tickets. Pemex, though its cooperative, has sent e-mails to its employees and retired personnel to inform them that they can buy lottery tickets at the oil company’s offices and it also offers discounts.
Throughout August, the state-owned company has urged employees to purchase lottery tickets through institutional e-mails and reminds the workers 100 winners will receive an MXN 20 million prize each.
When questioned over the use of institutional e-mails to promote the raffle, Pemex said it had no information regarding the purchase of lottery tickets and that the oil company is not aware of the workers’ union is gifting tickets.
The controversial airplane
López Obrador
often describes the airplane as a symbol of excess and corruption in previous governments.
Mexico’s presidential plane was purchased by former President Felipe Calderón at the end of his term. It was used by former President Enrique Peña Nieto, while López Obrador refused to use it.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador widely criticized the purchase of the luxurious airplane and said it was immoral for the President to travel in a custom-made airplane while Mexicans live in poverty.
In January, EL UNIVERSAL reported that the Mexican government learned the presidential plane would generate million-dollar losses in 2015.
Since 2015, during Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration, the Mexican government knew the purchase of the José María Morelos y Pavón TP-01 presidential plane would represent the loss of up to USD 137 million, which was purchased by the government led by Felipe Calderón Hinojosa in 2012, for USD 218.7 million,
In September 2015, then-President Enrique Peña Nieto asked Banobras to issue a sales study about the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner assembled in 2009, which was used for flight tests by Boeing before it was purchased by the Mexican government.
The study was carried out by Ascend FlightGlobal Consultancy, a company based in London. The study was finalized in December 2015.
The analysis was released by the previous administration in January 2016. It explains that the as a result of the characteristics of the market and the complex on that context, there was an important risk that the airplane would not be sold in 12 months and warns that if the Boeing 787-8 is sold within the private airplanes market in 24 months, the economic loss over its original purchase price would increase to USD 65.9 million and USD 76.26 million is it was sold in January 2019.
Meanwhile, a projection of “future valuations” in the commercial airline market shows that in January 2016, the presidential plane could have been sold for USD 90.44 million and USD 88.9 million in January 2017, at least USD 129.76 million less than its original price. By January 2018, it would sell for USD 85.2 million and USD 81.6 million in 2019. It was not a good deal to purchase the Boeing 787-8.
In July 2018, EL UNIVERSAL published that experts warned the selling the airplane was not the best option since its price would depreciate between 5% and 8% every year and that it would be sold for up to 30% of its original price.
Additionally, Felipe Calderón’s administration requested modifications and equipment that increased the price of the plane by USD 218.7 million, which gives a total of USD 2,952.4 million.
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