The new science law prevents wasting the treasury: Alvarez Boella

Laura Boy Solano

La Jornada newspaper
Sunday 14 August 2022, p. 5

He explained that the new general law for the humanities, sciences, technologies and innovation seeks to recognize science as a right and not a privilege, and to ensure strict and transparent use of public resources allocated to the sector to achieve scientific sovereignty in the country. María Elena Alvarez Buella, Director General of the National Council for Science and Technology (CONASET).

In an interview, expect today that the initial draft of this regulatory framework is almost ready, There is only one final opinion of the Executive’s Legal Department to give its approval, and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador determines which chamber of the Federal Congress he will send the initiative to..

He does not rule out the possibility of discussing the project in the next regular sessions, starting next September That we can make one of the great achievements of the country’s transformation process.

An expert in molecular genetics and responsible for guiding public policy in scientific matters asserts that science, as a social activity, must be at the service of humanity with two basic guides: social welfare and environmental care.

He also criticizes that in the terms of the previous six years, science was accustomed to it waste public resources, rather than investing them in a truly national scientific agenda. Specifies that for about two decades, he turned into a concert In a kind of front of science and technology, because in fact it was a dark box, very big, where billions of pesos were distributed opaquely..

Alvarez Boella asserted that the waste of public resources exceeds 45 billion pesos, only in what was given to the private sector, between 2001 and 2018. And this money was not even devoted to technological science, but to the interests that were created, perhaps political allies and the legitimization of governments. Although done with their properly designed rules, it is unethical and unacceptable. We can’t keep doing the same.

Since arriving at Conacyt in 2019, he adds, among the many irregularities, he has found With white elephants, constructions, under the pretext of scientific developments, which were never implemented and included the disposal of billions of pesos in the states, moreover, where there were scientific and technological emergencies and a shortage of scholarships.

add that They have left us over 10,000 science projects without timely follow-up, closure, or cancellation, let alone returning resources. We have recovered nearly 8 billion pesos without legal claim, because the arguments are compelling. Just last week, with that audit work, we got 400 million pesos back. We are talking about huge sums!

In 2019, with the amendment of the third constitutional article, Mexico became the first country in the world to issue the Magna Carta the universal right to the flag and its benefits.

Thus, approval of the first public law on this matter would not only guarantee this right, but would also lay the foundations for a scientific policy in the interest of the population and the transparent use of resources, as well as allow the state regulations to be in line with these goals, the Director General of Conacyt determines.

also It will eschew the practices of the neoliberal period that affected thousands of students, where masters and doctoral scholarships were used as traps, even within public universities, to make graduate programs business and to monitor reserves where coordinators or mediators decided how to distribute CONASET scholarships, without any clarity.

The new legal framework project, as a result of a long process of analysis, debate and discussion that began in 2021, including with organizations and groups opposed to sector transformation, is considering changing the name Conacyt to the National Council for the Humanities, Science, Technology and Innovation.

With the new regulatory framework We seek social welfare, which is the mainstay in this government, and that no one wants to take advantage of the resources allocated to this sector for their own business, whether they are science and technology based or not..