A month after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visited Durango, he prevented the public attending the events of his tour from booing Governor Esteban Villegas and, in that context of post-electoral reconciliation, he asked the PRI leader to report on a conflict that has halted the construction of an industrial park intended to place Durango in the new international production chains (nearshoring).
A month after that tour, the clarification never came and a first investment of 700 million pesos was left in limbo. At least a part of it, because although Governor Villegas indicated half a year ago that the company Duranpark did put money into the first infrastructures of land that has been semi-abandoned for years, he said that “the agreement was that they had to put in 700 million pesos, they put in 18 million.” The company then proceeded to expropriate the land without revealing that the 700 million were to be paid gradually and with a maximum date of 2027.
A judge found sufficient elements to believe that the aforementioned company had been defrauded by the Durango government, so he granted an injunction last July, but its fulfillment was not carried out.
The case was revealed by investors in the Logistics and Industrial Center of Durango (CLID) complex and brokers, the intermediaries who hunt for investments from companies that can produce in these Mexican industrial parks to export to the United States. These intermediaries have already informed the interested parties that the expected Logistics and Industrial Center of Durango (CLID) will not be built because the state government breached the agreements signed with the construction company.
The agreement signed by Duranpark in 2022 gave it a period of 5 years to complete an investment of exactly 698 million pesos, of which it had already made 17, in addition to the fact that it should be in charge of urbanization in the area.
To date, the space that was to be Durango’s link with the great economic cycles between Asia-Mexico-United States, looks like abandoned land for industrial purposes, occupied by crops and with the outlines of infrastructure that Duranpark began to place. Duranpark’s investment would be accompanied by others that should provide railway service to the north, but also to the Sinaloa ports, just to exploit a condition that only Durango has.
The history of the city of Durango, however, where the conflict is, is the same as always: strategically placed in the middle of the national territory and of the commercial flows to the US, but lacking, for one reason or another, the capacity to take advantage of it. In this case, the most important reason for Governor Villegas to have decided on this crusade against the industrial park was that the previous governor, José Rosas Aispuro, rival of the acting PRI governor, was the promoter of the project. “It represents the opportunity for (the city of Durango) to finally be integrated, with national and international connectivity, through the Northern Economic Corridor. Sooner or later the state capital will have many more investments that will translate into jobs,” Aispuro said about this plan. The vision was cut short and, according to the government, the bet will be on a very discreet project for handling shipments and packages.
Last April, a federal judge determined that the governor of Durango directly affected the Duranpark company by expropriating the land that had been ceded to it by his predecessor José Rosas Aispuro, and in which the company had already made an economic investment for the development of the CLID. The issue was not the amount (17 or 18 million of the 698 million agreed), but that the injection had begun and so there was no reason to accuse the company of non-compliance.
“The CLID is a strategic industrial park for the use of the T-MEC and the nearshoring phenomenon (business relocation), which boosts the local and national economy, in addition to generating thousands of jobs,” the promoters of the investors emphasize in various communications in which they have informed their clients that the planned opening of the CLID will not take place.
The public conflict has become public precisely because after April, when the first district judge in Durango, Iván Francisco Rodríguez Zamarripa, granted a definitive suspension to avoid the dispossession of the land, “since Villegas made official the withdrawal of the rights over the land of some 200 hectares constitutes an affectation to the ownership and possession of the properties of the Duranpark company,” said a source from the company to Crónica to explain why the investment hunters proceed with announcements in which, between the lines, they are questioning the rule of law in Durango.
Another alert openly states: “This case puts at risk not only Duranpark, but all investment that comes to Durango and Mexico.”
Without presenting evidence, Villegas Villarreal accused Duranpark of wanting to register the land in its name: “Of course I got upset with them and told them: the agreement is over,” declared the president. The papers tell another story.
In the indirect amparo trial, the judge was clear in warning of the inappropriateness of the decision of the local Congress: The approval of the Expropriation Law for the State of Durango, specifically, for not contemplating a hearing procedure prior to an act of deprivation, such as expropriation.
Upon reviewing the appeal filed by those affected, the judge established the impossibility for the authority to sell, rent, encumber, transmit, exploit, use, take advantage of, utilize and/or manipulate in such a way that they obtain a benefit or fruit, direct or indirect, derived from the property located on the construction surface.
In addition, he determined that the registrations, updates or cancellations in the Municipal Cadastre should not be carried out, nor should the fractions previously specified be registered as property of the Government of the State of Durango, with the things remaining in the name of the complainant here.
That “any other order, diligence or act of execution, other than those stated above, tending to dispossess, despoil, occupy and/or expropriate (in fact) the complaining company of its property be immediately suspended,” reads the resolution.
One of the bases for taking this decision was that the state government itself, through the Secretariat of Finance and Administration, denied the existence of files regarding an alleged embezzlement or affectation of state assets.
The highest court in the country has determined in a forceful manner that in cases of expropriation, because they are private acts, the guarantee of a prior hearing must apply, something that Esteban Villegas also did not grant.
The Duranpark company assured that “if for some reason Duranpark had not fulfilled its obligations under the contract, the legal mechanism available to the governor was a completely different matter to what he is doing,” something that José Pablo Ramos, a lawyer for the firm, has maintained with investors who, as end users of the failed industrial park, have also been affected.
“It is essential that the rule of law and signed contracts be respected to guarantee a stable and safe investment environment. Without these guarantees, the economic development of Durango will be seriously affected,” says Roberto Reyes.
Source: cronica
