The president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep), César Zamora, affirmed in News 12, on Channel 12, the existence of a dialogue mechanism between the chambers of the private sector and the Government of Nicaragua, in which the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (CABEI), works as a “facilitator”.
Zamora advocated “making efforts to build bridges of communication, understanding and generosity,” because at this point, “the country requires more talk than shouting… and knowing how to forgive.”
The president of the Nicaraguan Energy Chamber (CEN), came to the leadership of the business union, after in October 2021, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo will imprison Michael Healy and Álvaro Vargasthen president and vice president of Cosep, whose arrest “hurts us, but we are supporting their families,” said Zamora.
With them, there are more than 180 political prisoners who suffer harsh prison conditions, to the point that the representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Central America, Alberto Brunori, has asked the Ortega government open El Chipote prison to international scrutiny.
However, in his interview Zamora omitted to refer to the illegality and punishment of political prisoners.
What he did report is that the chambers associated with the union entity “have, today, a dialogue with the authorities, and it is on their agendas to resolve these issues. Part of the discussion with CABEI is to see these issues in a corporate way”, although COSEP as a leadership has not yet sat down to discuss this initiative, “but there are already established channels of communication between the chambers and the Government to resolve the issues. issues that affect the activities of companies,” he said.
Directors of two chambers affiliated with Cosep, who spoke with CONFIDENTIAL On condition of anonymity, they explained that there are technical conversations with government officials to take steps to solve specific problems, but not a dialogue in rigor, and less a political one.
“There is no dialogue between the chambers and the Government, and even less between Cosep and the Government. What César meant to say is that the chambers, like the companies, make arrangements with the government institutions, but they are formalities and ordinary procedures. It is not a dialogue, nor is it with the higher authorities”, explained the member of the Cosep board of directors.
“We are not in a dialogue with the Government, and even less so having tripartite meetings in which CABEI is present. What we do have are consultations with our counterparts in the Government, to advance on functional issues that allow us to continue working”, detailed a business source that is part of the board of directors of a chamber that promotes the construction sector.
A member of the COSEP board of directors, who offered statements to CONFIDENTIALfrom the security of anonymity, specified that “César spoke of ‘forgive’, but forgiveness does not mean forgetting, and he never said that we had to forget.”
“Technical meetings”, not political dialogue
Zamora explained that “it is not that CABEI is intermediating: it is a facilitator”, and had “the courage to put oneself in the ring in a difficult situation”, recalling that Nicaragua is “an extremely polarized society, and this has to become something more constructive so that we can all have a position on the country’s solutions”.
Let’s see what happens. What we cannot do is waste the opportunity to see what is ‘chimando’ us, and raise it honestly, seeing what we do so that the country’s productivity improves, so that all of us Nicas are part of the solution, and seek mechanisms for dialogue and understanding, and being able to talk”.
Zamora said that “we cannot live permanently in confrontation, and for the economic issue we need honesty, knowing how to forgive each other, and knowing how to face the future with knowledge of the facts.”
“Dialogue is an approach that cannot be ruled out,” said another Cosep director. “What happens is that it is demonized, because the regime is using it to buy time and ‘turn us around’, but COSEP proposes a responsible, honest dialogue, and in which the agreements are fulfilled. The dialogue should not be seen as a capitulation or as someone being sold, ”he requested.
This manager insisted that “there is no dialogue that is being orchestrated with CABEI, but if someone invites you to a ‘party’ where the other party is, then there will be conversations”, highlighting that CABEI and some chambers were going to meet to expand the presentation that the Bank madebecause the unions are interested in the millionaire portfolio of that international credit entity.
The Chamber of Developers of Nicaragua (Cadur) has high expectations for its meetings with the Central American Bank, which for more than a year has approved a loan of 171.7 million dollars to finance 18,600 homes in Nicaragua, but Dante Mossi, head of the regional entity, extended the deadline for disbursement of resources.
Two former members of the Cosep board told CONFIDENTIALthat the subject of the meetings is not the same for all the chambers, pointing out as an example that the Chamber of Construction attended the meeting with Mossi at the CABEI headquarters in Managua, but they have not met with him again, or with anyone of your staff.
In the same way, they pointed out that others, such as the Chamber of Commerce, have met, both with government officials (to solve operational problems, as befits its nature as a union entity), and with CABEI, to explore options for financing, ruling out that none of these initiatives corresponds to any type of dialogue in itself.
economic difficulties
Presenting his vision of the state of the Nicaraguan economy, Zamora admitted that the country has enormous challenges, and that the growth of 10.3% observed in 2021, left ‘winners’, such as exporters, who had substantial increases in their yields. “In the domestic market is where we have great challenges for the future”, which poses the challenge of “speaking frankly about the country’s economic challenges. Our priority is to handle the economic issues of our chambers with sincerity and transparency”, he pointed out.
He suggested analyzing how to cushion the ‘external blow’, which represents the high cost of fuelwaves difficulties in transporting goods and services of the world economy, recognizing that this “is a challenge for the country, and an enormous opportunity”, because Canada and the United States they will look “in closer places” raw materials for their industries.
This generates “many possibilities” for companies to settle in Nicaragua -and throughout Central America- whose basic objective is to supply the enormous North American markets, substituting the raw material they buy in China and India. “We have that advantage, and we have the enormous responsibility to act with honesty and transparency, through frank dialogues with the authorities, to envision a future for all,” insisted Zamora.
“The private sector is very concerned about the departure of Nicaraguans abroad, because in general, the most valuable people leaveand that is a huge challenge for the economy and for the country’s workforce. These are issues that we have to address responsibly, without politicizing them, but looking for a consensus solution”, he added.
Zamora also called for work to strengthen the country’s energy sector, which includes making service rates more attractive to consumers, especially when recalling how the country’s electricity coverage is growing, and that 65% of the energy served this year originated from renewable sources.
