NewsLatin AmericaA Polish company, millions in losses and thousands of batteries about to expire: Segalmex's new hole

A Polish company, millions in losses and thousands of batteries about to expire: Segalmex’s new hole

Thousands of boxes of Segalmex brand batteries accumulate dust in a warehouse north of Mexico City. The batteries purchased in 2019 with public funds are approaching their expiration date, piled up in a warehouse in the Gustavo A. Madero mayor’s office, far from the social supply stores for which they were intended. The same items are sold on the other side of the Atlantic, in Carrefour supermarkets in the city of Warsaw, in Eastern Europe, as EL PAIS revealed last week. The pieces on both sides of the ocean portray the mess that Seguridad Alimenticia Mexicana (Segalmex) had with the purchase of supplies for the basic food basket. The supplier that sold thousands of batteries to the parastatal assures that they have not wanted to receive half of the shipment that they already paid for and that it has been abandoned in their warehouses. While the manufacturer of the batteries, a Polish company, has explained that, given the stoppage in purchases from Mexico, it has had to put the product on sale in its country to recover production costs. Both companies affirm that the disorder of the sale ended up causing them great economic losses.

Segalmex decided to include the batteries in the basic basket in March 2019, and a few months later agreed a first purchase of these items for around 15 million pesos with the company Tempoel Mexico SA de CV The supplier, a subsidiary of the Spanish Tempel Group, still It keeps in its warehouses some seven million pesos in batteries on the verge of expiring that it has not been able to deliver. Along with these boxes, they keep other hundreds of thousands of batteries that they bought to continue supplying the parastatal, which, according to a representative, had promised them another five more purchases. This also impacted the company that manufactured the items to sell to Tempel Group, Poland’s Rocket Poland Sp. zoo According to their version, they had overproduced the batteries in the hope that orders would continue. But Segalmex paralyzed the supply chain due to irregularities in the purchase documents, which led the companies to have a huge inventory of product and thousands of dollars in losses.

Segalmex batteries on sale in a supermarket in Poland.Courtesy

With the arrival of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to power, the historic store to provide the poorest with basic products, the Compania Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (Conasupo), changed its name in January 2019 and was renamed Segalmex. In charge of him, the president appointed a close friend, Ignacio Ovalle, whose management was marked by numerous accusations of corruption. During the first three years since its creation, within the parastatal company there was an enormous disorder that led to hundreds of millions of pesos being spent on products that were never received, that were not distributed correctly in the 25,000 stores that they operate, or that they could not be sold because they were not of interest to the communities and ended up spoiling. Damages to the Treasury, in monetary terms, amount to 15,000 million pesos.

Ignacio Ovalle, general director of Segalmex, during the Well-being conferences in Mexico City, on July 7, 2020.
Ignacio Ovalle, general director of Segalmex, during the Well-being conferences in Mexico City, on July 7, 2020.Presidency (DARK ROOM)

Segalmex halted receipt of materials for some purchases it had made when allegations of corruption exploded. In June 2020, the head of the Administration and Finance Unit, Rene Gavira, left the unit involved in accusations. One of the things he is accused of is having forged illegal contracts with companies under a concept called “legal reception”, a figure that pushed Segalmex to pay suppliers in full for the agreements, but the companies kept the products until they the government institution will request delivery. This practice led to suppliers never finishing delivering 100% of what had been purchased from them, causing damage to the public treasury.

Tempel Group claims to not understand why Segalmex has abandoned these materials in its warehouses, but is evaluating the possibility of taking the matter to justice. “This situation is causing us a series of storage expenses that we still have to charge for guarding and custody of the merchandise. As well as possible legal actions for breaking the supply agreements scheduled at the time,” the company details in an email to this newspaper.

In addition to the contract that Tempoel Mexico and Segalmex signed for the 15 million pesos in batteries, the supplier assures that they had verbally agreed to five more purchases, but they could not even complete the first one. Thinking orders would continue, the company decided to order thousands of shipments from the Polish company that regularly makes batteries for them to sell, Rocket Poland. Those packages are still standing in the same warehouses where the batteries that Segalmex did pay for are, as this newspaper has been able to verify. “The interruption of this supply has caused us a overstock of approximately 150,000 dollars and that we had to have supplied when receiving a new order, once the entire first one had been delivered”, explained Tempel Group.

Boxes of batteries with the Segalmex brand in the Tempel Group warehouse.
Boxes of batteries with the Segalmex brand in the Tempel Group warehouse.The country

Rocket, the Polish battery maker, had also been bracing for more future sales at the behest of the Tempel Group. He had produced enough to supply his client with the orders that he received from the Mexican parastatal. All those Segalmex brand batteries were paralyzed in Poland, so the company decided to put them on the European market to reduce losses. “Rocket Poland offers battery production solutions to various customers around the world. One of those orders came from Tempoel Mexico with the possibility of supplying the Segalmex brand to the Government,” a spokesperson told EL PAIS in an email. “With the last order already in production, we received information that no further deliveries would be made, including the order that was in progress. Since this was already in production and Rocket Poland had to cover production costs, we had to compensate, and those batteries were subsequently sold in Poland,” he added.

The chaos that governed behind closed doors in the agency dependent on the Ministry of Agriculture generated not only million-dollar damage to public coffers, but also great losses for companies that still have thousands of batteries with the seal of the Mexican Government. After the dissemination of the case, Segalmex assured that in July 2022 it had denounced the commercialization of products with its name in Europe. While the investigation sails in the Prosecutor’s Office, the batteries that belong to the parastatal company are waiting to be dispatched before expiring next October.

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