This has been the silent weakening of the IFT’s regulatory autonomy

However, Juárez Mojica assured Expansión that with the modification of the organic statute carried out two years ago, the Institute can hold plenary sessions and call extraordinary sessions with at least three commissioners, instead of five. Although he recognizes that this would imply limitations to fully exercise his powers.

The IFT could not issue resolutions on barriers to competition, regulatory provisions, nor establish guidelines or technical guidelines and its internal regulations would be curbed. In addition, it would be unable to issue Investigative Authority and economic competition appointments, one of the most crucial areas for the regulator as they are in charge of generating studies on markets that are subsequently used to discuss new regulations, experts said.

“The upcoming departure of Javier Juárez would result in greater complexity for the powers of the Institute, since several faculties require at least five votes to be able to issue a resolution and to nourish the debates in the Plenary,” said Adriana Labardini, former commissioner of the body. telecommunications regulator.

Experts have previously commented to this medium that the lack of more commissioners could limit the vision and discussion of certain issues such as the asymmetric measures with which América Móvil operates.

The weakening

For four years, the IFT has faced a human resources crisis. On February 29, 2020, Gabriel Contreras ended his term as commissioned president of the Institute in the midst of a pandemic that stopped the assignment of new positions within the regulator, but not the departure of more officials. A year later Mario Fromow ended his term, leaving the plenary session with only five commissioners. Then followed Adolfo Cuevas, who after serving nine years as commissioner had to leave his position as commissioner president of the IFT in February 2022.

The appointment of commissioners is the responsibility of the Executive. The president must choose profiles from a list of shortlists provided by the Evaluation Committee and Inegi, which is the result of a series of rigorous tests applied to various candidates to demonstrate their technical profile. The appointments of the IFT commissioners are due to a technical rather than a political nature.

However, former president López Obrador rejected all the shortlists, arguing that the names on the list were only issued by the Inegi and the Evaluation Committee, missing the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE), whose entity disappeared in 2019 due to decree.

Labardini regretted that the Obadorista six-year term had been opaque in avoiding the appointment of the missing positions, especially when this time women had to be elected in order to enrich the regulatory vision of one of the most important sectors in the country.

“It was the first time that there was the possibility of having three female commissioners to achieve gender parity. We no longer want only men to have the regulatory vision of the digital ecosystem, we need experts,” said the former commissioner of the regulatory body.

Absorption of faculties

Added to this adverse situation faced by the antitrust entity is the initiative promoted by Senator Ricardo Sheffield that seeks to remove powers from the regulator in matters of protection and user rights to transfer them to the Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco). The proposal is based on the alleged existence of duplication of functions between the IFT and Profeco that cause confusion for consumers, such as the regulator’s platform to file complaints about deficient telecommunications services.

Javier Juárez said that they are analyzing Porfeco’s proposal to determine if it affects the invasion of the regulator’s powers and thus implies promoting some constitutional controversy. Until now, the telecommunications regulatory body has the general coordination of user policy, obligations that are exercised through the organic statute, but now this framework cannot be modified because it requires five commissioners.

And although for now there are no more details on how the powers of the IFT would be transferred to Profeco, for Adolfo Cuevas, former president commissioner of the Institute, this type of initiative such as the weakening of the regulator is due to an ideological vision that “fails to appreciate and understand “the evolution and importance of a bureaucracy technically qualified by a policy.”

“These types of initiatives (such as Profeco) must be analyzed from the consumer and technical point of view. And not to remain at a level of dispute between authorities to see what can be taken from an entity, but if the bet is the political door, the effects will be seen over time through greater benefits for some economic powers,” Cuevas warned.

Since taking office, Claudia Sheinbaum has not commented on the reform to eliminate autonomous entities and it does not even appear among the 100 commitments for her six-year term. However, the silence resonates within the regulator as they are almost bound by hands and with movements that seek to claim powers that they obtained thanks to the telecommunications reform of 2013, which sought to blur that bureaucratic, litigious and non-technical image of the sector, but that little by little is beginning to get closer again.