The government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared Friday of public utility and ordered the temporary occupation of three railway sections that belong to Grupo México, one of the largest conglomerates in the country.
According to a decree published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, “the conservation and provision of the public rail transport service, its use, exploitation, operation, exploitation and other improvements” of lines Z, ZA and other improvements are declared to be of public utility. FAs that run between the southern towns of Medias Aguas to Coatzacoalcos, from Hibueras to Minatitlán and from El Chapo to Coatzacoalcos that were awarded in concession since 1998 to the company Ferrosur, which belongs to Grupo México Transportes.
The sections went to the state company Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec and will be integrated into the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor (CIIT) project, the decree said.
The measure came a day after López Obrador declared the multimillion-dollar railway project known as Tren Maya, the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and four airports in the south of the country in open defiance of the Supreme Court of Justice of “national security”. the Nation that determined on Thursday that the agreement that decreed that tourist trains and other infrastructure projects were works of “national security” was unconstitutional.
The occupation of the railway lines remained in the hands of the Secretary of the Navy, to which López Obrador handed over in 2021 partial ownership of the Interoceanic Train project that will run through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as part of a series of emblematic tasks and projects that the president has handed over to the military.
The government said that the measure ensures the “effective operation of the logistics platform. It is imperative to have control and administration of all the railway lines that comprise the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec”, located between the states of Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco and Chiapas.
The CIIT will assume the payment of the compensation for the occupation of the railway sections, said the decree.
Grupo México Transportes said in a statement that personnel from the Secretary of the Navy occupied the Ferrosur facilities in the Coatzacoalcos-Medias section from 6 in the morning, an action that it considered “surprising and unusual.”
“The company will continue to provide the service to its users without any affectation for the moment, only with the surveillance of the Armed Forces,” the group said, adding that the situation is being analyzed by the company and its advisors.
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