The Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega on Thursday canceled 151 non-governmental organizations, including the American Chamber of Commerce of Nicaragua (AMCHAM), which for 47 years has promoted bilateral trade and investment between Washington and Managua, according to a publication in La Gaceta, the official bulletin of the Central American country.
According to the Sandinista government, AMCHAM, like the other NGOs that were deregistered this week, allegedly failed to report their financial statements for several years.
AMCHAM Nicaragua brought together more than 300 companies.
The government’s argument for closing the 151 NGOs has been the same as that used to close more than 5,000 other non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua since the beginning of the socio-political crisis in 2018 until now.
Other organizations dedicated to investment and economics were also annulled.
“AMCHAM, the one that is sounding the most, but it is not the only one. They also closed the business chamber with Costa Rica, with Spain, and that will have serious consequences on foreign direct investment,” he told the Voice of America Nicaraguan economist Juan Sebastian Chamorro.
“When an investor is thinking about investing in Nicaragua and looking for a support platform in the country for entrepreneurs, they will realize that the dictatorship simply eliminated the association. It is regrettable that, with this obsession with wanting to eliminate civil society organizations and wanting to impose an association model that forces them to be partners of the State,” added Chamorro.
On Monday, the Sandinista government cancelled 1,500 other non-governmental organizations under the same allegations of alleged financial non-compliance, most of them religious in nature.
Daniel Ortega’s government began the mass closure of NGOs after the start of the political crisis in 2018 that sparked protests against his government.
Recently, the Nicaraguan government established a reform to the NGO law, so that non-profit organizations that wish to operate in the country establish alliances with government institutions to execute their projects.
“This reform will allow the country to efficiently manage all the resources that come to our nation and ensure that there is no more duplication or waste,” said the deputy of the ruling party, Carlos Emilio López.
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