A government investigation has cleared Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, his wife and the country’s finance minister of any wrongdoing in a scandal involving luxury homes they bought from government contractors.
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Andrade concluded that terms of the contracts were not modified after Pena Nieto took office.
Andrade said Friday that Rivera had reached an agreement with the Grupo Higa subsidiary to pay about $635,000 US (10.5 million pesos) in rent for the almost three years she used the property.
“The investigation demonstrates that my conduct and that of my wife were fully legal”, he said.
According to the report, summarized in a press conference, the president and Minister of Housing Luis Videgaray had both bought the properties under investigation before becoming federal state officials in December 2012 and therefore did not illegally interfere during the process of awarding contracts to the owners. Pena Nieto offered “a honest apology” to Mexicans upset by what he called “interpretations” of the irregularities.
Virgilio Andrade, the minister for public administration, said no conflict of interest was found to have existed because neither man was in office when they purchased the homes.
Doubts have surrounded Andrade’s investigation, in part because of his lack of independence; Pena Nieto appointed him in February to investigate his own administration.
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The special prosecutor has published the findings of his investigation on the website of the government’s top transparency agency.
