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Meta
Autor: Writer
~ 14/09/06
By Blake Schmidt, Tico Times Staff
A press conference at the San José headquarters of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) became heated yesterday when an ICE employees’ union leader took the microphone to criticize the naming of the institute’s new president.
“We don’t trust you,” Fabio Chávez, head of the Association of Costa Rican Electricity and Telcom Institute Employees (ASDEICE), told Pedro Quirós, the institute’s new president, who was named Tuesday and introduced himself to the press yesterday.
ICE president Jorge Gutiérrez stepped down this week, citing health problems and denying that his resignation had anything to do with differences of opinion with President Oscar Arias’ administration over pending telecommunications reforms.
“I made the decision Sunday with my family after I had a hypertension attack,” Gutiérrez said, adding his high-stress 18-hour days as president, in addition to his struggle with diabetes, were taking a toll on his health.
Quirós took his seat amid clashes with union leaders, who criticized the new head for his “attitude of privatization” and promised to fight his appointment, not ruling out the possibility of strikes. Quirós denied that Arias’ administration wants ICE to privatize.
Quirós has worked with companies in the United States and Brazil, headed technical missions to South American countries for the Organization of American States (OAS) and founded ICE’s National Operation System for Telecommunications in the 1960s, according to a copy of his resume provided by Casa Presidencial.
His controversial naming by President Oscar Arias came as the President’s administration continued to put finishing touches on a proposed law to reform telecommunications that would open ICE’s monopoly on the market. This breakup has been long criticized by opponents of the controversial Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA), which Arias has said he hopes to see ratified by December.
Autor: Writer
The Arias administration has a lot in common with the policies of the Movimiento Libertario, according to Rodrigo Arias, the minister of the Presidencia.
Arias had lunch Tuesday with Otto Guevara, the former lawmaker and presidential candidate who continues to be the president of the Libertario party. Óscar Arias Sánchez, the president, won election as the Partido Liberación Nacional candidate.
Rodrigo Arias said that he and Guevara are in agreement on the urgency to approve the free trade treaty with the United States, to approve the so-called complimentary agenda that puts the treaty into practice and to break the monopoly now held by state telecommunications agencies and the Instituto Nacional de Seguros, the nation’s only insurance company.
“We agreed that the TLC is not an end in itself,” said Rodrigo Arias, using the acronym of the treaty’s Spanish name (CAFTA in US). “But it is an opportunity given the country to participate and be more intensive in its foreign trade.”
Rodrigo Arias also said that Casa Presidencial Tuesday was sending a proposed law to the Instituto Costariccense de Electricidad for review by its board of directors. This is a measure that is supposed to strengthen the state entity so that it can compete with private firms that might appear if the treaty is approved.
If the board of directors agrees with the measure, the proposal will be forwarded to the Asamblea Legislativa.
President Óscar Arias Sánchez has predicted that the assembly would vote on the free trade treaty sometime in December. Opponents of the agreement disagree, and some are mounting a series of street protests against the measure.
Costa Rica is the only one of five Latin nations that has not approved the pact.