Mexico City, Mexico – The Mayan Train project is set to move forward following a critical two-day public consultation in which the vote went in its favor.
The consultation was held in 84 Mexican municipalities in which the construction of the railroad will impact its citizens. Out of the Mexican’s who participated, 92.3 percent voted to support the project. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced these results of the public consultation during a press conference following the vote.
Participants in Yucatan voted 87.8 percent in favor of the mega project. In the state of Quintana Roo, 82.5 percent voted to move forward with the construction. President Obrador confirmed a 93.6 percent vote in Campeche and approval in Chiapas seeing a 96.3 percent vote. The highest yes-vote came from Tabasco at 99.1 percent.
The multi-billion-dollar project stretching 1,525km across the Yucatan Peninsula received its unanimous vote to be built in exchange for cultural and beneficiary needs to be met.
Minutes of the regional assemblies were conveyed by the general director of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, Adelfo Regino Montes to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, specifying the agreements of the peoples and communities.
“They have proposed their demands, their demands in terms of development, basic infrastructure, in the matter of land tenure and the protection of their cultural and intellectual heritage be met. (…) They have also proposed that they be beneficiaries of this important development project,” said Montes.
With the intentions of work commencing in April, the general director of the National Fund for Tourism Promotion, Rogelio Jiménez Pon, declared that a tender will be launched in the first week of January.
In locations where basic engineering studies previously exist the tenders will be procured first, explained President Lopez Obrador. The Cancun-Tulum region was selected to be the first phase to tender, due to the federal government’s basic engineering studies that were delivered on December 13th.
By: Joseph O. Gravel / December 29, 2019
