by Rod Hughes

It’s official: By a 29 to 14 vote, the Legislative Assembly yesterday passed a bill to open up the insurance market which had been a monopoly of the National Insurance Institute (INS) since its creation in 1924. The bill is one of the original 13 pieces of legislation needed to bring Costa Rican law into accord with the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Of the CAFTA implementation bills, this one and another to break ICE’s telecommunications monopoly had been the most hotly contested. Some bills have been passed, a couple were rejected by the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber (Sala IV) for changes to articles, but slowly they are being cleared from the pipeline.

The new law sets up an insurance regulatory agency. National Liberation party deputy Maureen Ballastero told the morning paper La Nacion, “I’m totally satisfied. It’s an excellent bill. It creates an open market but very regulated, secure for customers, in accord with CAFTA and tries to preserve the principles of INS.”

One worry had been about the fate of the Fire Department (Bomberos), a branch of INS for 84 years. Now, the firemen will have more say in their affairs and will be financed by 4% of insurance premiums sold in the country.

Current INS CEO Guillermo Constenla had been lobbying the lawmakers hard for extra perks for his agency. INS still retains the sole source from which the government can buy insurance.

Chief opposition to the bill has been the Citizen Action Party (PAC) and leftist deputy Jose Merino, although no doubt existed that the President and his party had enough votes for passage. (PAC vigorously opposed passage of CAFTA in a nationwide referendum last October.) Final vote is scheduled for next Tuesday when 38 votes are needed for final passage. To accomplish this, all legislators from National Liberation, Social Christian Unity and the Libertaian parties will have to be mustered to overcome the opposition.

by Rod Hughes

Costa Rica’s Catholic Church finds itself in the middle of a financial scandal involving apparent use of its pastoral bank accounts to channel funds from a Panamanian offshore investment house into a hotel company. A sum of $3 million went through the bank account when Grupo SAMA extended the credit to Anna Moscarelli’s hotel company.

Between 2002 and 2007 the hotelier received the loans through the Church’s National Espiscopal Conference of Costa Rica Pastoral Services account in Banco Nacional, investigative reporting by the daily paper La Nacion discovered.. The loans were secured by stock in Moscarelli’s two hotels at Papagayo Gulf and one at Tortuguero Beach (valued at some $30 million in total, according to La Nación) and, when Moscarelli ran into delays in payment, SAMA and the Church took over the stocks. Now Moscarelli is suing to get control of her hotels back.

A curious clause in the loan contract seems to indicate that SAMA and the Church foresaw that they might run into legal problems with the loan. Clause 16 reads, in part, “If in the duration of this loan contract… it is declared illegal by firm resolution of a competent judicial or administrative authority, then it shall be illegal for the creditor that the creditor make or maintain the loan or receive any sum…”

(Although this clause may seem strange, legal sources consulted by La Nacion yesterday said the qualification contained in the contract is common in such loans.)

Moscarelli’s suit names Bishop José Francisco Ulloa as defendant. Although Grupo Sama representatives are remaining mum, Moscarelli granted an exclusive interview with La Nación in which she, a Swiss-born Costa Rican, said all she wants to do is to sell the hotels and retire in Switzerland. She said she met with Msr. Ulloa and thought everything was worked out with him. One of the loan agreements contained a “gag order” clause.

One of the complications in the case is that the accountant for the Episcopal Conference at the time of the contracts, Minor Rojas, has since died.

by Rod Hughes

The 43 passengers and driver of a luxury bus narrowly escaped serious injury or death in a freak accident on the InterAmerican Highway south of the capital when a loose spare tire jarred off the bed of a small truck and slammed into the bus. Three passengers and the driver were cut by flying glass and another six received bruises when the bus veered into a roadside retaining wall.

The bus was crossing the infamous Cerro de la Muerte section on its way from San Isidro to the capital when the mishap occurred. The driver of the truck continued merrily on his way and Traffic Police despair of ever finding him. This is not the first such accident. Just last Monday, a repair part fell from a trailer, bounced on the pavement and broke the windshield of a passing truck.

Said Officer Luis Martinez who attended the bus accident, it is not at all unusual for trucks to carry loose spare tires and other unsecured objects in their beds. The bus driver credits his safety belt for saving him from being catapulted from his seat and on to the bus steps. Driver Norman Rivera, 57, says he was also able to retain control of the wheel and avoided veering off to the left where a yawning revine awaited.

by Rod Hughes

Uh-oh, boys and girls, this does NOT look good! Saprissa, usually deadly on its own home pitch, tied 1-1 with the Mexican soccer club Pachuca Monday in Ricardo Saprissa Stadium in the first match of two to decide the CONCACAF champion,. Riding on these to matches is a cool $1 million prize and a birth in the FIFA world championship tourney of clubs in Japan.

To recap, the big purple “S” started the year (after a tie in the opener) with nine straight wins in the the national championsips, plus knocking off a couple of prestigious sides in the CONCACAF tourney, including the last, a powerful Houston Dynamo. It has since dropped four straight First Division matches and now tied at home. WHASSAMATTA?

If it had not been for Victor Cordero’s opportunistic goal with a minute of official time left, emerging from a meleé in front of the goal, the task for Saprissa might have been insurmountable. Pachuca had led since minute 46 after Damián Alvarez enabled Luis Gabriel Rey to score a goal. These two gave numerous headaches to Saprissa defenders with their short game. This game proved more effective than Saprissa’s attacks from the sidelines.

As La Nación sportwriter Gustavo Jiménez observed, the usually effective combination of Andrés Núñez and Armando Alonso on the right, backed by veteran Ronald Gómez, met with a cool, organized Pachuca resistance. This, plus Michael Barrantes playing close in on the left, ready to convert himself into another forward, should have swamped Pachuca—but didn’t.

But, after all, it’s only a game, mere entertainment, we tell ourselves as we chew our nails awaiting the next encounter.