Costa Rica: Political Rates for Utilities

The stubbornness of the Solis administration to award a highly technical job to a candidate rejected by employers confirms the importance that this specific person would have in the formulation of public tariffs.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Editor's note:
This review was written hours before the now newly appointed General Regulator of Costa Rica gave notice of his resignation from his position at the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE). When announcing his resignation the official said: "There is no legal conflict between the position held in the ICE and my appointment as Controller General, but I make this decision in the interests of transparency which must prevail in my new position." His insistence on the legality of his appointment, an insistence which attempts to justify the anti ethical nature of it, has caused yet more concern over the justice of the decisions to be taken in the exercise of his office. This concern grows when you consider that if he had not resigned, it would have meant mandatory abstention in decisions that involved the company where he held office. Now he will no longer have to abstain.

EDITORIAL

Instead of carrying out an indispensable search for harmony with the productive sectors, President Solis has insisted on a fixed candidate - a person with a clear conflict of interest in the undertaking of his work- and imposed the candidate through an unethical and undemocratic ploy, concocted in the legislative field by deputies of the ruling party.

Such stubbornness and such unfair tactics skip over the will of opponents, confirming the assumption that the actions taken by the next Controller General of tariffs for public services in Costa Rica (Aresep) will not be based on purely technical criteria, since applying these purely technical criteria could certainly be done by others with a similar -technical- aptitude, which would have prevented President Solis from paying a high political cost to the business sector, a sector that believes the imposition of that person in front of ARESEP is "making a mockery of the country. "

Acceptance of such costs allows for the suggestion that President Solis hopes that with this designation he will win another round in the battle of his relations with the state bureaucracy, specifically in maintaining the privileges that hold public officials many through collective agreements (conventions) that could not be paid if they were not included as costs in the formulation of public tariffs, to which the current directive of ARESEP has refused to do.

The tone of the statement from the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associates of the Private Business Sector (UCCAEP) is uncommon for its severe criticism of these government actions. It is suffice to transcribe the final sentence: "This is a sad day, that we will certainly remember."

From the statement issued by the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations of Private Business Sector (UCCAEP):

UCCAEP: 'Lack of quorum to appoint Controller General is a mockery to the country'

- UCCAEP warned weeks ago about the spurious strategy of the Executive to prevent MPs from ratifying the appointment.
- "Controller General enters through the back door," says the Union of Chambers.

Making a mockery of the Executive, the Citizen Action Party and the Frente Amplio and the people of Costa Rica; this is how the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations of Private Business Sector (UCCAEP), describes what happened this afternoon in the Legislature.

The absence of 70% of Members of the PAC and more than half of legislators from Frente Amplio, prevented a quorum, meaning that the first power of the Republic was unable to vote to ratify or not the candidate put forward by the Government for the position of Controller General.

According to the Act ARESEP, the successful candidate will be appointed head of the Regulatory Authority automatically, because of inaction of the Legislature, on Saturday April 9.

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