The creation of the Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company was made official this week by the National Assembly, controlled by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, establishing said entity as “a decentralized public company, with technical, administrative and financial autonomy, under the domain of the State of Nicaragua, with legal personality and its own assets, of indefinite duration and with full capacity to acquire rights and obligations.”
The company’s registered office, according to the law that created it, will be in the department of Río San Juan and will be under the sectoral direction of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (MTI).
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The approval of the law creating the Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company occurred five days after dictator Daniel Ortega, through presidential decree 11-2024, published on August 23 in La Gaceta, ordered the reform of the functions of the Commission for the Development of the San Juan River, removing from its powers the dredging of that tributary and directing the creation of a company in charge of these tasks.
Company Functions
The regulation for the creation of the Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company, approved unanimously by 90 Ortega deputies, establishes as part of the purpose of said company “the continuity of the dredging” of that tributary and “the reinforcement of the dredging equipment.”
It will also be responsible for “organizing, managing and executing dredging operations: sediment extraction, island cleaning, tree and weed removal, mobile dunes, among others.”
Among the benefits provided by the Ortega deputies for the state-owned Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company was that “contracts for works, goods and services” signed by the company will be exempt “from taxes, fees and tributes established in the Tax Agreement Law, the Municipal Law and special laws.”
Million-dollar budget for dredging
The Ortega supporter Wálmaro Gutiérrez, during the plenary session broadcast on the social networks of the National Assembly, stressed that the creation of said company – ordered by Ortega – was “correct”, arguing that it is “better” to have a company dedicated specifically to this, since the National Port Company has “countless projects to execute” and it was previously in charge of these functions.
“It is not the same as a company with the responsibilities of the National Port Company, which has within its portfolio a countless number of projects that it has to execute, and one of them to date has been to promote the execution of this dredging, which thank God has been done as an excellent success, but what is better than having a company, where its only line of work, its specialization, its reason for existing is the dredging of the San Juan River,” Gutiérrez defended.
He also revealed that 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 dredging work of the San Juan River.”
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“We have a detail in the Production, Economy and Budget Commission, at least for the last and most recent 10 years of execution, where the average execution of these resources has been practically 100% and that demonstrates the level of responsibility and commitment of the Nicaraguan state to this issue,” added the accomplice of Ortega.
He also indicated that for 2024 the National Assembly has already approved “resources for the dredging of the San Juan River in the order of 64.7 million cordobas with a high execution to date.” The funds remaining from that amount that was allocated for the dredging of the tributary would be transferred to the Nicaraguan San Juan River Dredging Company so that it can begin to carry out its functions.
