Nicaraguan businessmen believe that electoral reform is essential to reactivate the country's economic activity, which has been in decline since the crisis erupted in 2018.
According to estimates by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Nicaragua's Gross Domestic Product contracted by 5.7% in 2019, a drop that complements the year-on-year variation of -3.8% recorded in 2018.
Through the creation of four new state-owned companies, President Ortega seeks to control the exploration and exploitation of oil in Nicaragua, as well as the import, storage, distribution and marketing of gas and fuels.
With the approval of the law initiatives, the government seeks to transfer the control that Alba de Nicaragua S.A. used to have in this market. (Albanisa), which was sanctioned by the U.S. because of its links with Petróleos de Venezuela, and Distribuidora Nicaragüense de Petróleo (DNP), which was also sanctioned by the same country, in this case for benefiting the Ortega family with non-competitive contracts.
In 2019, the perception of corruption in public institutions increased in all countries of the region except Costa Rica, where it remained the same as in 2018.
As has been the case in recent years, Nicaragua's public sector continues to be perceived as the most corrupt in the region (transparency level 22 on a scale of 0 to 100), followed by Guatemala (26), Honduras (26), Dominican Republic (28), El Salvador (34), Panama (36), and Costa Rica (56).
The European Parliament's plenary session proposes that the European Commission apply the democratic clause in the EU-Central America Association Agreement, which would involve Nicaragua's withdrawal from the agreement.
Almost two years after the start of the political and economic crisis in Nicaragua, MEPs are proposing to sanction the Ortega administration with the eventual withdrawal of the country from the trade agreement.
To the denouncements made in recent months by businessmen from Guatemala and Nicaragua, is added that of a Honduran union, which denounces the invasion of 3,400 manzanas of productive land.
In Nicaragua, businessmen claim that since June last year, 28 properties in different parts of the country are still taken by groups of people related to the Ortega regime.
According to the Union of Agricultural Producers of Nicaragua (Upanic), the 28 properties located in seven departments of the country, together represent 4,615 manzanas.
The Dominican Republic, Panama and Honduras are the nations in the region where the majority of the population believes that corruption in governmentinstitutions has increased in the last twelve months.
The report "Barómetro Global de la Corrupción: América Latina y El Caribe 2019 - Opiniones y Experiencias de los ciudadanos en materia de corrupción" (Global Corruption Barometer: Latin America and the Caribbean 2019 - Opinions and Experiences of Citizens on Corruption), compiled by Transparency International and published on September 23, 2019, evaluated the perception of corruption in the countries of the region and some aspects of insecurity.
Because the area of stolen land in Guatemala has grown from about 10,000 hectares in the 1990s to 164,000 in 2018, losses in agricultural production caused by this phenomenon reached nearly $650 million last year.
The Chamber of Agriculture (Camagro) estimates that only in 2018, invasions of private property, mainly agricultural production farms, generated a negative impact equivalent to 0.6% of Gross Domestic Product.
After motorized paramilitaries attacked a group of businessmen with firearms on September 7, the productive sector asks the government to clarify the facts "in an objective and truthful manner.”
The violent aggression was directed at the Cosep delegation and the Civic Alliance, made up of José Adán Aguerri, Michael Healy and Álvaro Vargas, who accompanied journalists Jaime Arellano and Aníbal Toruño on a visit to the city of León, reported the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep).
The National Assembly of Nicaragua approved the bill that establishes that when the price per quintal of grain exceeds $100, producers must contribute one dollar to a commission that will watch over the incentives of the sector.
The changes to the Law on the Transformation and Development of Coffee Farming were surrounded by controversy, since the previous law mandated that the National Commission for the Transformation and Development of Coffee Farming (Conatradec) should be composed of nine representatives of the private sector, all proposed by the same producers or businessmen.
Although several sectors disapprove of the initiative, in Nicaragua the Legislative Commission in charge of the reform endorsed the bill that seeks to remove the power of businessmen to propose their representatives to the Coffee Commission.
On August 14, the Production and Economy Commission of the National Assembly ruled positively on the initiative presented by President Ortega to modify the Law for the Transformation and Development of Coffee Farming.
The Nicaraguan government seeks to deprive the business sector of the power to propose its representatives to the National Commission for the Transformation and Development of Coffee Farming.
President Daniel Ortega presented an initiative to the National Assembly to modify the Law for the Transformation and Development of Coffee Farming, which among the changes includes that the Members of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep) do not have the power to propose their representatives to the National Commission for the Transformation and Development of Coffee Farming (Conatradec).
In Nicaragua, the Ortega administration ordered the closure of five of the 38 branches operated by the Medco pharmacy chain for having joined the national strike on May 23.
The order to cease operations of the five branches was notified through the Ministry of Health, however, the company will appeal the decision of the authorities.
Laprensa.com.ni review that representatives of the company reported that "...
Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica are the countries in the region with the best conditions to develop Public-Private Partnerships, followed by Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
The 2019 Infrascope index, which evaluates 23 indicators and 78 qualitative and quantitative sub-indicators in Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Latin America, is prepared by The Economist Intelligence Unit and has the financial backing of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Partly because of the government's reduced availability of resources from domestic sources, public investment in the first three months of the year totaled $87.7 million, 52% less than in the same period in 2018.
According to reports from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, the Public Investment Plan (PIP), which includes projects for the construction, expansion and rehabilitation of infrastructure, decreased by $95.7 million between the first quarter of 2018 and the same period of 2019, from $183.4 million to $87.7 million.
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