The new Nicaraguan Company for the Dredging of the San Juan River, with which the dictatorship says it will clean the entire tributary, from its source in Lake Nicaragua to its mouth, in the Caribbean Sea, does not even have a definition in its creating Law or in its regulations, a source of financing, according to a review of the General Budget of the Republic (PGR), submitted for approval in the National Assembly this week.
On August 28, the Sandinista National Assembly approved Law 1213, through which the Nicaraguan Company for the Dredging of the San Juan River was created. This Law came into effect on September 2, with its publication in the Official Gazette La Gaceta. , number 162.
The Law only has eight articles. In the second article it establishes that “the Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company is created as a decentralized Public Company, with technical, administrative and financial autonomy, under the control of the State of Nicaragua, with legal personality and its own assets.”
The same article orders that the duration of said company is indefinite and “with full capacity to acquire rights and obligations, with domicile in the Department of Río San Juan, under the sectoral leadership of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure; in order to contribute to the defense of National Sovereignty.
Related news: New dredging in the San Juan River lacks “environmental impact studies”
Article three states that the purpose of the new state company is “to guarantee the continuity of dredging of the San Juan River, the reinforcement of dredging equipment, as well as to organize, manage and execute dredging operations: sediment extraction, cleaning of islands, removal of trees and undergrowth, mobile dunes, among others; “All of this in order to help guarantee the sovereignty of the State and improve the navigability of the San Juan River.”
The following articles of the legislation are dedicated to the management structure, hiring, exemptions among other aspects, but nowhere does it say what the source of financing will be, especially taking into account that this company does not generate any type of economic profits.
On October 29, dictator Ortega ordered Presidential Decree 18-2024, Regulation of the Law Creating the Dredging Company, to be published in La Gaceta, but the source of the company’s financing is not mentioned either.
They will dredge the entire San Juan River
Law 1213 establishes that the new state company is autonomous but under the “sectoral governance” of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MTI). It is not established that the MTI will allocate a budget item for the created entity.
However, in the MTI Budget there is an allocation of approximately C$200 million to dredge “200 kilometers” of the river. That is to say, the dictatorship intends to sell the idea that its new company will be able to dredge the 200 kilometers that is the total length of the San Juan, from its source in Lake Cocibolca to its mouth in the Cribe Sea, in the territory of the municipality of San Juan de Nicaragua.
Related news: Sandinistas create the Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company and reveal how much the country has spent on these tasks
The president of the environmental organization Fundación del Río, Amaru Ruiz, an expert in the Río San Juan area, in an interview on the program In Contactof Article 66, He was surprised by the Ortega-Murilo regime’s statement that seeks to sell the idea that they are capable of dredging the 200 kilometers of the San Juan.
The environmental activist in exile recalled that, first of all, the section of the river that presents navigability problems is between the Colorado Delta and the mouth, which is approximately 25 kilometers. The rest of the river has no navigability problems and therefore does not need to be dredged.
Millionaire dredging
As revealed by the Sandinista deputy Walmaro Gutiérrez during the approval of Law 1213, in the last 10 years – always under the power of the Ortega-Murillo regime – the country has allocated 637,432,999 córdobas (more than 17.4 million dollars) “for the work of dredging of Río San Juan.
Likewise, Gutiérrez stated that for this year “resources for dredging the San Juan River in the order of 64.7 million córdobas had already been approved, with high execution to date.” The remaining funds from that item that was allocated for dredging the tributary would go to the Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company so that it can begin to carry out its functions, said the official deputy, without delving into details.
