The regime sent to the National Assembly a proposal to reform Law 917 or Export Free Zone Law, with which it will remove the two representatives of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep), from the National Commission of Free Zones of Nicaragua (CNZF), and will replace them with “two representatives of the companies that operate under the free zone regime.”
On October 27, when Law No. 915, Law Creating the Agency for the Promotion of Investments and Exports (PRONICARAGUA), to enact Law No. 1134, Law Creating the Secretariat for the Promotion of Investments and Exports, Ortega also eliminated the participation of two representatives of Cosep, (one of them had to be the president of that organization), who had the right to integrate the Board of Directors of the agency .
Now, changes are being proposed in the CNZF, which is the governing body and promoter of the free zone regime in the country, and works in coordination with the Free Zone Corporation, an entity in charge of promoting, developing, operating, directing and managing the free zones. public free zones, without forgetting that there are also free zones of private domain.
The current law was approved and published in October 2015, when COSEP was part of the so-called “dialogue and consensus model” instituted by Daniel Ortega, with which, in practice, entrepreneurs could influence the law-making process in the country, and broke in april 2018when the Government, applying its slogan of “let’s go with everything”, began to assassinate citizens who were protesting demanding democracy and justice.
The proposal to reform Law 917 maintains the premise that the Free Zones Corporation be managed by a Board of Directors that acts as a collegiate body, with “the powers of a general representative in accordance with the law and its regulations.”
At this time, this Council is made up of the presidential delegate for the promotion of investment and the facilitation of foreign trade, as well as the head of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Labor, and two representatives of Cosep.
Reforman maintains a Technical Committee
The reform —presented urgently— replaces the two delegates of the business leadership, but maintains the Technical Committee that knows, evaluates and endorses the special cases of request for exemptions from companies attached to the free zone regime, when there are discrepancies of interpretation with the DGA or the DGI, which takes power away from the Board of Directors, told CONFIDENTIAL a former member of the Cosep Board.
The mission of this Technical Committee is to resolve the aforementioned “interpretation discrepancies”, which include “exemptions of vehicles, machinery, equipment, spare parts and other transport implements, and others required by the User Companies and Operators of Free Zones ”, having to issue recommendations to solve them.
At this time, the legal text indicates that the coordination of the Committee falls to the Vice President of the National Commission of Free Zones, and will be made up of a delegate from the DGA, one from the DGI, one from the National Commission of Free Zones, and one from Cosep, who is to be replaced by a businessman who operates under a free zone regime, in addition to adding a representative from the Ministry of Finance.
