Enrique Pena Nieto Mexican President.

Tribune News Service/Mexico City

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto declined to immediately disclose records showing how he and his wife acquired homes that are the subject of an investigation overshadowing his administration.
He said that the federal probe into whether government contractors obtained an unfair advantage after selling homes to him and first lady Angelica Rivera would vindicate the couple. Pena Nieto added he saw no reason to short-circuit that process and release documents showing that they paid for the homes.
“This is a topic that has been sufficiently explained and I am leaving it up to the comptroller who is in charge of the investigation,” he said during an interview with Bloomberg News in Brussels. “I acknowledge that there could have been a mistake about this issue, a mistake in terms of the perception created, but never was there any act against the law.”
Asked why he didn’t simply produce proof of purchase to re-establish public trust, he said, “We’ll leave that to the nation’s comptroller, who will undoubtedly be able to present the results of his investigation.”
The comptroller said in February his probe would seek to establish whether the companies that sold the homes received favourable treatment when they later bid for federal contracts and won’t seek to determine how the homes were obtained.
Accusations of cronyism have hurt Pena Nieto’s approval ratings in a country that ranked 103rd of the 175 nations on Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. Following allegations of favouritism for contractors, he named a public auditor to investigate the scandals and pushed new transparency and anti-corruption laws through congress.