Resignation of Finance Minister Forces Zedillo to Reshuffle Cabinet by LADB Staff Category/Department: Mexico Published: 1995-01-11

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1-11-1995 Resignation of Finance Minister Forces Zedillo to Reshufflea C binet LADB Staff

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Recommended Citation LADB Staff. "Resignation of Finance Minister Forces Zedillo to Reshufflea C binet." (1995). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ sourcemex/3372

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in SourceMex by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LADB Article Id: 56319 ISSN: 1054-8890 Resignation of Finance Minister Forces Zedillo to Reshuffle Cabinet by LADB Staff Category/Department: Mexico Published: 1995-01-11

The ouster of Jaime Serra Puche as Finance Secretary forced President Ernesto Zedillo to institute his first cabinet reshuffling, less than a month after taking office on Jan. 1. Serra Puche tendered his resignation on Dec. 29, but analysts generally agree the departure was requested by Zedillo after a loss in confidence in the Finance Secretary following the devaluation of the peso. Throughout December, Serra Puche had staunchly denied that a devaluation of the peso was imminent. However, on Dec. 20, the government announced plans to end support for the peso at 3.40 per US dollar, which in effect was the start of the devaluation of the peso.

To replace Serra Puche as Finance Secretary, Zedillo appointed Guillermo Ortiz Martinez, a protege of former finance secretary Pedro Aspe. Ortiz Martinez had held the post of Communications and Transportation Secretary for three weeks before accepting the appointment as Finance Secretary. As deputy finance secretary during former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari's administration, Ortiz Martinez directed the reprivatization of the banking system in the early 1990s, and was also a major player in the opening of Mexico's financial system to foreign institutions. The banking system had been nationalized by former president Jose Lopez Portillo in 1982, but reprivatized by Salinas. Ortiz Martinez also played an instrumental role in the privatization of other key government enterprises, including the telephone company Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) and the television network Televisa.

To replace Ortiz Martinez as head of the Communications and Transportation Secretariat (Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transporte, SCT), Zedillo appointed Jose Ruiz Sacristan, who during the original round of appointments last November had been named to head the state- run oil company PEMEX. The SCT will play a pivotal role in Zedillo's efforts to speed up the privatization of government enterprises, since the agency oversees many of these properties, including port management and some services linked to the state-run railroad Ferrocarriles Nacionales (Ferronales). Meantime, Adrian Lajous, an economist who specializes in the petroleum sector, was appointed to replace Ruiz Sacristan as director of PEMEX. Lajous is expected to play a key role in the privatization of PEMEX petrochemical plants, which Zedillo promised to expedite as part of the emergency economic measures announced in early January. (Sources: Agence France- Presse, 11/30/94; 12/30/94; New York Times, 12/31/94; Deutsche Press Agentur, 01/05/95)

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