Upon conducting a census of Mexico’s government-run and concessionary child care centers, the Social Welfare Ministry detected 97,180 children who had been registered, but were unreachable, representing 31.2% of all 310,617 children registered at the national level. During one of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s morning press conferences, Welfare Minister María Luisa Albores and her assistant secretary Ariadna Montiel presented the results of the census. Yesterday, President López Obrador acknowledged that the subject had raised concern among Mexicans. However, the census would allow state officials to know exactly how many children and parents were part of the program. “Regardless of the assessment results, we are assuming the commitment to provide financial support directly to the children’s mothers and fathers,” he stressed, alleging that the cancellation of the child care centers program was a lie. “It was said that the child care centers would be canceled, which is not true. If you tell a lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it, that’s what Goebbels said, he was Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda,” said the statesman to prove his point. He insisted that one of his administration’s main commitments was to eliminate intermediaries so that the people could receive resources directly, as would allegedly be the case with child care centers. On March 30, before the conclusion of the census, the head of the Welfare Ministry revealed that there were nearly 50 thousand “phantom” children registered at subsidized child care centers out of a total of 330,000 that were registered at the end of the Enrique Peña Nieto administration. Assistant secretary Montiel said that the registry presented in January 2019 had included 310,617 children and that so far, 203,262 parents had accepted the new conditions of the program. “As for the rest, there are 97,000 children that we haven’t been able to locate. This may be due to a number of reasons ranging from irregularities in some addresses to people living in a different address than the one they initially provided,” she stated. María Luisa Albores said that each family would receive MXN$800 a month per infant, which will be delivered every two months. “The program will be effective as of April 4 throughout the Republic. In the case of children with disabilities, the bi-monthly welfare support will be of MXN$3,600,” she added. The results of the census will be sent to the National Transparency Institute so that the information can be consulted by all parties interested. The minister Albores González stressed that “changes made to some legislative instruments will not imply a shutdown of child care centers. They will continue to operate as long as they provide a high quality service while ensuring the safety of children.” Source: Notimex

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