The president of Mexico has a lust for fine linens – but the public says the embroidered towels he bought for $443 apiece are an outrage.
President Vicente Fox also shelled out for luxury bedsheets costing $1,000 apiece and spent $19,000 to install electrically operated curtains.
And all of it was bought with taxpayers’ money as part of the remodeling of Los Pinos, his official Mexico City residence.
The newspaper Milenio wrote about the $400,000 spending spree under the headline “The Four-Million-Peso Household.”
That has the nation up in arms – furious that while Fox lives in the lap of luxury, his supporters can’t get enough food and have inadequate health care.
But Fox wasn’t apologizing yesterday – and instead blasted the newspaper that broke the story.
“How good that the press is making this known to the world, the price we pay for our towels,” he said bitterly.
Fox, a former Coca-Cola exec, has called for austerity in the use of government funds.
But he has also drawn criticism for the high salaries he pays his staff.