The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced on Thursday the sale of the country’s presidential plane to the government of Tajikistan for 92 million dollars, finally fulfilling an old campaign promise and his preaching of austerity.
“After a long time, this plane was sold,” said the president – known as AMLO by his initials – in a video posted on his social networks, where he appears sitting inside the luxurious aircraft.
“We never used it, but I would have felt sorry (shame), I say it sincerely, to use this plane,” López Obrador added, insisting that its expensive maintenance “contradicts the Republican austerity” that he exhibits as a pillar of his government.
The operation was sealed for 1,659 million pesos, an amount in accordance with the official appraisal, and was carried out between the Banobras development bank and the state investment committee of the former Soviet republic, informed the director of the bank, Jorge Mendoza, who accompanies López Obrador in the video.
“The transaction is already closed, we have already received the resources in their entirety,” added the official, who explained that the Tajikistan government has approximately 10 days from Thursday to take the aircraft.
López Obrador recalled that the Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 was acquired towards the end of the administration of former President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), but delivered during the term of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), the only one who used it in his numerous international tours.
“It is important to know how people thought before, how the authorities acted, like little pharaohs, that should no longer be allowed,” he added.
The leftist president announced that the money from the sale will be used to build two hospitals in the southern towns of Tlapa (Guerrero state) and Tuxtepec (Oaxaca), two of the poorest areas in Mexico.
The aircraft, originally purchased for $218 million, has been for sale and flying for maintenance purposes only since López Obrador took office in 2018.
It was offered to countries like Argentina and to some private buyers, but the negotiations failed because, according to the president, it was a “very extravagant and very luxurious” plane.
López Obrador even offered to raffle it in 2021 by putting lottery tickets on sale, although in the end the prize consisted of an amount equivalent to the price of the plane.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project