http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40332-2003Sep7?language=printer
The Washington Post
washingtonpost.com
Mexican Town Forgoes Law for Order
Mayor Abolishes Traffic Fines in a Bid to End Bribery by Police Officers
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 8, 2003; Page A15
ECATEPEC, Mexico -- Park where you like, speed if you want to, run a red
light, don't bother renewing your driver's license and let that seat belt
flap in the wind. Nobody's going to bust you as long as Mayor Eruviel Avila
Villegas is in charge.
Avila's first official act when he took office last month was to abolish
parking and traffic fines in this city of 2.5 million people just north of
Mexico City. Avila, 34, a soft-spoken lawyer with curly hair, is nobody's
anarchist. He's just looking for radical new ways to solve one of Mexico's
most annoying problems: cops demanding bribes.
The mayor's theory is that if police officers can't threaten drivers with
tickets, they can't shake them down. "We are renewing and revolutionizing
our city," he said. "People will always speed. They will always park
illegally. But this way they won't have to pay bribes."
Many Ecatepec residents said they feel liberated by the policy, which gives
them at least a temporary respite from the money-grubbing officers who are
among the great nuisances of daily life in Mexico.
"This isn't a gift -- this is something we deserve," said a delighted
Guadalupe Flores, 38, who works in a hotel in this working-class city.
Police are less happy, some for obvious reasons, and others because they
said they fear chaos when unchecked human nature is the only law on the
streets.
"People know we can't do anything and they laugh in our faces," said
officer Erasmo Rosas Buenrostro, who has been armed with nothing more than
a whistle since Avila confiscated all the ticket books in town and piled
them up on his desk in city hall.
It is impossible to calculate the cost of corruption in Mexican life,
although Francisco Barrio, who was known as Mexico's anti-corruption "czar"
when he was federal comptroller, estimated that it could be as high as 9
percent of the gross domestic product. The head of Pemex, the state oil
monopoly, has said corruption costs the company $1 billion a year. Bribes
are paid for everything from getting a car inspected to persuading the
phone repairman to come before Christmas. A survey by Transparency Mexico,
the local branch of Transparency International, showed there were at least
200 million shakedowns a year, two for each of Mexico's 100 million people.
As officials have become more open about the economic and social costs of
police corruption, several initiatives have been launched, including the
purging of entire police forces and starting over in some towns. In Mexico
City, police chief Marcelo Ebrard recently began paying his officers a cash
bonus for making an arrest. The idea is to make being clean more lucrative
than being dirty.
But with police typically earning just a few hundred dollars a month, and
with no pension when they retire, officers on the beat still tend to behave
as if every driver were an ATM.
In Ecatepec, Avila said, a dozen of the city's 177 traffic officers simply
stopped showing up for work when the new policy was announced on Aug. 19.
Police here earn an average of about $420 a month, but some were adding as
much as $2,000 a month to their salaries with bribes from drivers, several
officers said. They said those who disappeared have probably moved to other
cities and taken jobs in police departments that still tolerate bribery as
a way to beef up low salaries.
Ecatepec is a sprawling city of humble barrios where those lucky enough to
have work commute by bus to jobs in Mexico City. It is part of the leathery
hide of poor, tough cities that ring the capital in Mexico state. Avila
said it's the kind of place that requires radical new ideas to root out
nasty old habits.
He dismissed criticism that the policy would bring chaos to the streets,
saying, "I don't think anybody's going to say, 'Let's go to Ecatepec
because they don't have laws.' " He said drunken driving and other criminal
offenses would still be punished. He said he believed people would behave
responsibly without the threat of fines for routine traffic offenses, and
he said the policy so far seems to be working.
Avila is not worried about losing revenue from traffic fines. "For every
peso that went into the city's coffers, five went into the pockets of the
police," he said. "The social benefit of doing this is greater than what we
lose in revenue." Avila said that if the anti-bribery scheme works, he
plans to extend it to other city departments; his next step will be to
eliminate most city building permits.
"We should trust our people and give them a chance," Avila said. "If they
don't respond well, we'll have to go back to the old way."
One day recently, a long line of cars was parked next to the town square,
exactly where the roadway is painted with huge yellow and white "NO
PARKING" signs. Jose Cruz Hinojosa, 39, said he was picking up his daughter
from school and would not be illegally parked for long. Cruz said he
definitely liked the mayor's campaign to wipe out corruption, but added,
"This one change is not going to stop it."
Traffic police officer Manuel Hernandez stood just up the street, shaking
his head. He said he would certainly have ticketed Cruz and the others a
few weeks ago, but now he can't. "The people know they can run red lights,
they can do anything they want," Hernandez said, with obvious disgust.
"It's not good, but what can we do?"
Avila said he doesn't mind a few angry officers because he is determined to
improve the image of his city and its police department. He has his work
cut out for him.
Earlier this year, 42 Ecatepec officers were arrested and charged with
selling drugs to children. Officers have been charged in recent years with
the murder of a 10-year-old they were trying to kidnap for ransom and a
string of robberies that left 17 people dead.
Last year, Ecatepec also became the punch line to a national joke when it
was disclosed that Avila's predecessor had given himself a salary of almost
$540,000 a year. When Avila took office, he immediately reduced his salary
to $108,000 a year, fired the old police chief and set out on his
zero-tolerance anti-bribery policy.
In many ways, Avila is also part of a national effort to change the image
of his political party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
Corruption and mismanagement became endemic in Mexico during the PRI's
71-year single-party rule, which ended when Vicente Fox was elected
president in 2000.
Since then, the PRI has tried to polish its image and, thanks in part to
Fox's sputtering attempts at government reforms, won big in national
midterm elections in July. In Ecatepec, the PRI has taken back the reform
agenda: Avila's overpaid predecessor was from Fox's National Action Party,
or PAN.
Avila is trying to soften the blow to police officers by increasing other
benefits. He said he is doubling the value of the monthly packet of basic
foodstuffs that each officer receives to $100. He said he will change
officers' hours -- now 24 hours on, 24 hours off -- to regular eight-hour
shifts. And he said the city will begin paying for uniforms and repairs to
patrol cars. As in many Mexican cities, the officers here have had to cover
these costs.
"The police don't have the trust of the people," Avila said. "I want to
give them the means to be honest."
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R. A. Hettinga