A Suggestion for Mexico

In 2000, I consulted to the elected president of Mexico at the time, Vicente Fox. We worked for nine uninterrupted days, sequestered on a ranch that Cortez had once given his Mexican lover as a present. I did a Syndag of the country with his transaction team.Unfortunately, not much has been done in light of that diagnosis, so I will take this opportunity to present that diagnosis to the newly elected president.When diagnosing the country, I found that its problems did not differ much from those I found in India and Ghana. The similarity between these countries is that they were all colonized.I found that in these three countries there was a deficiency of the (E) entrepreneurial and (A) administrative roles in the structure of the governing bodies.Why the similarity? What is the connection to colonialism?While the colonists were in power, they performed the (A) and (E) roles. England, for instance, excelled in the (A) role. (Actually, I believe this is how they built and ran their empire.) British foreign officers who were sent to the colonies were trained in (A), in administrative procedures. The governments constructed in colonies were designed to mirror the government of the colonizing country, so a foreign service official could easily move from one colony to another other and hit the ground running when they assumed a new post.Spain performed the (A) role for Mexico and Mexico did not develop their indigenous government infrastructure or administration. And so, law and order are not honored.Can you imagine 7.5 million illegal houses constructed by what they call phantom developers who develop, sell the housing and disappear, and the only punishment is that the government refuses to register those houses to the buyers? They are being bought nevertheless because the price is cheaper.It only makes the transactions even more complicated—who really owns what?In my judgment, the new president’s priority should be cleaning the corrupt courts. All the rest should follow.Each candidate promises to fight corruption. One of them, Ayala even promises to prosecute the sitting president and put him in prison if he is found guilty. I suggest that with the corrupt judiciary in place, these are empty words.None of it will happen. I’ll let you judge for yourself why that might be.Just thinkingIchak Kalderon Adizes