The left-wing mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has in the weekend auctioned off most of its predecessors bullet-proof luxury cars.
It came to pass, as part of a larger plan to stop the widespread corruption in the country and reduce the political elite’s riches.
In the first auktionsrunde was 218 vehicles put up for sale, and the buyers could bid on everything from vans, trucks, tractors, passenger cars, pickups, motorcycles, buses – and up to several luxurious statsmandsbiler with heavy armoring.
In total, 196 of the cars sold, bringing in the mexican state of well over 21 million dollars. It writes the news agency AP.
For april, the government will take a step further and sell the 54 aircraft and helicopters, as will later be sold 66 luxury cars, homes, country houses and jewelry for an unknown – and probably not insignificant – amount of money.
According to the president’s plan, the money would go to fund a national guard composed of personnel from both the police and the military. Other parts of the surplus should go to social programs in the voldsprægede country.
Several of the local houses cars would reportedly have been sold far below the purchase price. For example, telling the mexican media El Universal about a Audi A8, which the state bought for 2.1 million, which the auction had a starting price of 650.000 dollars.
In Mexico, where more than 33,000 people last year were murdered, president Obrador promised radical changes within the state.
Since its inauguration in december 2018, he has cut præsidentlønnen with 60 percent to about 36,000 dollars per month. He has also abolished large parts of the pension for former presidents.
And so he has decided to sell the expensive Boeing 787-8 præsidentfly, as the previous president ordered in 2012. It writes the Spanish news agency Agencia EFE.
On the præsidentflyet with a purchase price of over 1.4 billion being put on auction along with the rest of the statsflåden is yet to be seen.