Since Rodrigo Chaves took over the presidency of Costa Rica on May 8, 2022, he has advanced his government’s intention to sell some state assets, including the BCR, and the legislative proposal was introduced by the Legislature Executive in September last year.
Faced with opposition from MPs on the aforementioned commission, the executive branch decided to cancel this initiative in the most recent special session (last November to January) when the government votes on the bills that lawmakers will have to debate.
With this unanimous vote, the members of the Economic Commission bury a proposal that many of them consider very poorly drafted, and the leader of the group, Vanessa Castro, a member of the Christian Social Unity Party, indicated that her group opposed the text from inconsistencies.
It doesn’t show the technical, financial or legal elements needed to complete a sale of this magnitude, he explained.
The leader of the Broad Front faction, Jonathan Acuña, claimed that “it would be a very serious mistake to sell a public bank that generates resources that feed, for example, the pension system or student loans”.
Therefore, he stressed, we are pleased that this executive project that wanted to sell the BCR has been filed, with major problems in its formulation, but with a central one that starts from very bad logic on how to solve the tax problem Problem.
“Under the pretext of having very short-term money, we walked away with a project like this to preserve valuable resources for Costa Rican society, leaving in our hands the dividends that are paid today, for example for the pension system from personal”.
He announced that his party would continue to fight any attempt to squander or sell valuable public companies like this one the executive branch now had.
Treasury Secretary Nogui Acosta had previously mentioned that the government might present a new bill to sell BCR next March.
jha/ale