The Nicaraguan National Assembly approved a legislative reform so that the Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), pass from the control of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Commerce (Mific), and Conaderfi, to the Ministry of the Interior (Migob), which which includes being able to close them without having to go through Parliament.
“This generates unnecessary stress in our organizations,” because it arouses suspicion among businessmen that they want to close the chambers, as well as the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep) itself. “For control purposes, the control already exists… this rather affects the business climate,” he told CONFIDENTIALunder promise of anonymity, the administrator of a chamber of the agri-food sector that is part of the union leadership.
The approved changes will affect the chambers, federations and business union confederations, as well as organizations religious typesporting, recreational, charitable, social, cultural, educationaland even to sports timekeeping organizations.
The reaction of businessmen was one of extreme caution. Representatives of eight chambers attached to Cosep, who spoke with CONFIDENTIAL On condition of anonymity, plus Lucy Valenti, former member of the Board of Directors of that entity, revealed that the private sector is analyzing the new situation that has arisen, although it is unlikely that they will make any public statement.
“Obviously they’re worried. with this change Well, what follows is that they will maintain stricter control over the guilds. [También] they feel threatened with the possibility that any chamber that does not comply with their instructions will be closed”, detailed Valenti.
The president of a chamber whose union sells imported products, explained the silence observed among his colleagues, admitting that “there is fear that they will close chambers, and start a persecution against businessmen, to the point that nobody is going to say ‘this mouth it’s mine’. At least not out loud” because, for practical purposes “no one has a mouth anymore”.
“What is complex is that now the chambers must be considered ‘foreign agents’. Being non-profit, apply the other law”, explained the director of another union, acknowledging that some of the strongest chambers receive external funds to organize their promotional and training activities, for example.
“This is generating uncertainty and concern, but the chambers are going to have to re-register, and understand that the rules of the game change, that there will be new requirements, such as becoming a foreign agent, and submitting to that law, which is more strict and bureaucratic”, said the manager of another union chamber.
This decision entails a process of “centralizing information, as a form of fight money laundering. Unfortunately, it takes place in a very political and sensitive context, and that is why it is given a political reading, but it should have been done even if there was not a political crisis. It is also true that it gives [al Gobierno] an extraordinary power, even to do politics”, he added.
“The possible effects are being analyzed, but we think that if we present the information in a timely manner, there should be no problems,” said the president of another chamber optimistically, while the leaders of two other chambers explained that “I only know that our Board of Directors was seeking support from legal advice”, and that “we are analyzing, to decide how we are going to act”.
FSLN: We are ‘modernizing’ the law
The approved reform changes until the date on which the private sector chambers have to celebrate their Day. In the reform to Law 1115 or the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations, October 12 of each year is established, as the Day of the Trade Union Chambers, Federations and Confederations of Nicaragua. COSEP established September 8 as “Businessman’s Day”, to commemorate the assassination of its former president, Jorge Salazar, in 1980.
“That’s not going to work. Private sector day is celebrated by the private sector. The rest is demagoguery”, added the administrator of the agri-food sector chamber cited above.
The new legal text reforms Law 1115, approved last March, as well as Law 522 or General Law on Sports, Physical Education and Physical Recreation, in force since 2005; in addition to repealing Law 849 or the General Law of Business Union Chambers, Federations and Confederations, active since 2013.
The ordered changes, in addition to expanding the range of organizations that Migob regulates, also grant it “the power to authorize, regulate, operate, dissolution, liquidation and cancellation of NPOs, national and other nationalitiesthrough (A simple) Ministerial agreement”.
Trying to justify his actions, deputy Edwin Castro, head of the Sandinista Front parliamentary caucus inside the chamber, said that in Latin America, NPO controls are concentrated in a single institution, citing as examples Mexico, Costa Rica , Panama, Chile, Peru, El Salvador, or Spain.
“In none of those countries, (atest or cancel legal status), It is a power of the Legislative Power. We are entering into the logic of Latin American legislation… acting according to the Hispanic current of control of non-profit organizations”, he assured.
Porras justifies guillotine law
The ‘scorched earth’ policy practiced by the government led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, has canceled so far, 1406 NGOsusing the National Assembly, presided over by Porras, as the guillotine in charge of ‘extinguishing’ civil society… but no more.
Deputy Gustavo Porras, head of that state power, argued that the reform “is necessary in terms… of political activity. This Assembly has gone through processes where it granted legal personalities to NPOs, business chambers, associations, universitiesand later, the Assembly disregarded and handed over the guardianship and monitoring to those organizations, to other institutions”, such as the Migob, the Mific, or the Conaderfi.
The legislator said that “it is not the National Assembly, which was going to follow up [para comprobar] if a group of people… were using that legal personality to commit crimes”, and how, after the Ministry of the Interior decreed the civil death of a certain entity, “the case was returned to the Assembly, so that it canceled the legal personality granted”.
With a sorrowful face, Porras said that “it does not seem rational to me that we are here, canceling legal entities of organizations that have not complied with what the law requires for ten years,” ignoring that, in some cases, many NGOs that they identify as ‘oppositionists’, the Migob simply stopped receiving the documentationto make them fall into a breach that justifies the preconceived decision to send them into illegality.
“Then they swallow the story… that they are cancellations of a political order. Probably they do not investigate the annexes, where the members of these boards of directors appear, ”he said, adding that some deputies (also acolytes of the Sandinista Front) are members of some of the outlawed organizations.
everything is political
“This is not a surprise,” said the administrator of the agri-food sector chamber. “This confirms a system of government where what matters is not the general welfare, but to achieve the most absolute control of everything, eliminating all forms of organization, but it has been proven that this system does not work.”
The extreme concern in which they have been submerged has led part of the union leadership to generate various “interpretations: ranging from ‘they want to make us all disappear, starting with Cosep and those that have been more belligerent’, to the thesis of that ‘they want to turn us into mercantile entities’”, he mentioned.
His opinion is that, in reality, what this bill shows is that “there is a degree of mistrust (in the Mic), or that the institutional system is not as cohesive as they would like, or as they would like to believe. For wanting to strengthen a control, what they do is show the opposite”.
Remember that “Law 849 was issued in 2013, which says that it was designed under the logic of this Government. Making these changes now shows inconsistency, an absence of a long-term vision, in addition to a lack of cohesion in the government system, since, since 2013, they showed their interest in strengthening base control.”
He explains that, when he speaks of “distrust”, he refers to the Mific, a state institution that, in the end, yes, it delivered the letters of compliance to the union entities. “Although there are red and black flags on its façade, internally, the Mific continues to be a very responsible technical entity, and as such, it adheres to the law, which sometimes puts them in conflict, when they are ordered to violate or manipulate the law. , although that does not get to be made public ”.
“Why remove powers from the Mific, if it belongs to the same State, and if you yourself are the one who gave them to it?” he asks. “That suggests they need to centralize these functions,” he adds.
The reason why the control of the union organizations migrated from the Migob to the Mific is because the latter is responsible for business development, but “with this change they are saying that the management becomes political, and it is inconsistent with the official thesis of set the political apart from the business. With this, the Government confirms that all social, political or economic actions are interrelated, which is correct when it is for the common good, not to benefit whoever is in power”, he defined.
The source reiterated his certainty that this will affect the Mific, “because there is an attempt at political subordination”, and that it will also affect the chambers because “with this change, they will make us go through the same filter with which some NPOs are being closed, which is a sign that they can close some, starting with Cosep, an option that all the chambers are fearing”, he shared.
