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The National Community Culture Program is one of the main axes leading culture in the current administration, a program that looks to promote the “effective exercise of people, groups, and communities' right to culture, especially those who have been left out of cultural policies.” The program will aim to recognize local artistic expressions and “use the power of art and culture for social transformation .” This is an ambitious project that will require a budget of MXN $400 million for 2019, which will be allocated from the MXN $675 million managed by the General Board of Cultural Association .
Nevertheless, according to information published by EL UNIVERSAL three days ago, the use of the resources hasn't been entirely transparent .
First, a virtual payroll was generated to launch the program, meanwhile, over 1,000 workers from the Culture Ministry were fired and 630 employees were hired through outsourcing to carry out activities such as facilitators, trainers, operators, promoters , among other positions; they will earn between MXN $8,000 and MXN $22,000.
There is a risk of the discretionary use of resources as the result of unclear operation rules. The Cultural Association Board acknowledges that the use of MXN $200 million to pay artists, ancestral creators , and the companies that organize events could “hardly be proven;” the institute adds that it won't be possible to prove that a certain price was assigned to ancient knowledge and techniques . When there are no invoices available, they will instead use “ community invoices .” The argument used is that the procedures included in the Acquisition Law do not correspond to the reality of many communities or with the cultural reality . In reality, the institute is already stating that there will be voids to justify the way in which public funds were used.
Lastly, the information published by the culture section in this newspaper details that for the identification of the cultural “agents” throughout the country, “ sensibility ” is needed to determine who can be considered as such. In other words, the allocation of resources will be based on intuition .
Mexico
is a fusion of different cultures and those that prevail in certain communities should be recognized but they are not the only ones. It is commendable that the government is trying to rescue these communities and that millions are allocated for these programs but transparency should be a requirement. Transparency is as important as remembering that Mexico is a multicultural nation .
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