Daily Edition: San José, Costa Rica, January 30,  2003

ICE Sí: state workers marched yesterday in protest of ICE budget cuts and CAFTA. TT/ Scott Brennan

Pacheco: No One Will
Be Fired At ICE
As some 7,000 protestors took to the streets yesterday to protest budget cuts to the Costa Rican Electricity and Telecom Institute (ICE), President Abel Pacheco this week reiterated his promise that under no circumstance would the state-run institute be privatized.
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New Energy Production Bill
Comes Under Fire
Responding to environmentalists' concerns, Environment Minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez this week announced the government will reform a new energy bill that allows community development groups and municipalities to generate their own electricity without congressional approval.
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Shake Shake But Don't Break
A mid-morning earthquake, registering 3.9 on the Richter Scale, was reported felt throughout most of the Central Valley yesterday, but resulted in no injuries or damage.
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Exhibit and Documentary on Columbus’ 4th Trip
Attend today’s opening at 10 a.m. with a round table discussion on the Limón Coast, Spanish politics and indigenous culture at the National Archive in Zapote. Info: 224-2084.

MALPAIS Show
Fidel Gamboa (guitar and voice), Carlos "Tapao" Vargas (percussion), Manuel Obregón (piano), Iván Rodríguez (violin and mandoline) and Jaime Gamboa (bas) are performing their songs of life in the city and the countryside; from their CD MALPAIS UNO. The show is at 10:00 p.m., at Jazz Café, across from Banco Popular, San Pedro, 253-8933.

Pacheco: No One Will
Be Fired At ICE
By Fabián Borges
Tico Times Staff

As some 7,000 protestors took to the streets yesterday to protest budget cuts to the Costa Rican Electricity and Telecom Institute (ICE), President Abel Pacheco this week reiterated his promise that under no circumstance would the state-run institute be privatized.

Pacheco added that none of the ICE's employees would lose their jobs in the coming year, despite his order to cut the institute's budget by $476 million in 2003 as part of austerity measures aimed at reducing the fiscal deficit.

ICE's board of directors last week stated that the budget cuts would likely result in the firing of 700 workers at the Pirrís hydroelectric project and at the Miravalles geothermal plant in the northwest province of Guanacaste.

The board also warned the cuts would likely cause delays in the issuing of 400,00 cell-phone lines, 100,000 regular phone lines, 50,000 broadband Internet connections, and 12,500 electric connections this year.

"I want to assure everyone that no one will be fired from ICE. We aren't going to make any Costa Rican suffer and we're not going to halt the institution's development," Pacheco maintained. "The only thing we're going to put an end to is wasteful spending."

Pacheco and Foreign Trade Minister Alberto Trejos reiterated their promise that Costa Rica would reject all proposals issued during negotiations for the upcoming Free-Trade Agreement between Central America and the U.S. (CAFTA) requiring ICE to be privatized.

Trejos explained that each country involved in the negotiation is allowed to have some "sensitive issues" - topics and products that require special care when being discussed or can't be discussed at all.

Costa Rica already has informed the other countries that the ICE is one of its sensitive issues.

"It can't be made any clearer," Foreign Trade Minister Alberto Trejos explained. "It's important to stop believing that all discussion topics can be reduced to just one. There are thousands of details that need to sorted out before signing this treaty. Telecommunications is just one of them."

Don't miss tomorrow's TT print edition for more on CAFTA and ICE

New Energy Production Bill
Comes Under Fire
By Fabián Borges
Tico Times Staff

Responding to environmentalists' concerns, Environment Minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez this week announced the government will reform a new energy bill that allows community development groups and municipalities to generate their own electricity without congressional approval.

Rodríguez said the goal of the new bill is to make it easier for groups to generate their own electricity by putting the Environment Ministry (MINAE), not Congress, in charge of granting permits.

He claims it is a good bill, but admits there are certain aspects that need to be rethought.

President Abel Pacheco, agreeing that the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water, said he will not veto the bill, but attempt to reform it before it becomes law.

The new bill would make the process of energy generation faster, reduce Congress' workload and guarantee that energy generation permits would first be subject to environmental impact studies by the MINAE, he said.

Environmentalists, however, are contesting two aspects of the law.

The first clause in question would allow municipal governments and the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) to expropriate lands for the purpose of developing hydroelectric projects, Rodriguez explained.

In the bill's current form, he said, hydroelectric projects could be built out on rivers that run into national parks and biological reserves.

"Most of the country's water resources come from national parks," Rodríguez argued. "Energy generated on rivers that feed protected areas would damage fragile ecosystems. These projects should be conducted only on rivers that flow out of protected areas, not into them."

The country's water resources are extremely valuable and generate the equivalent of $400 million a year in electricity, he said.

The second part of the bill that worries environmentalists is a clause that allows cooperatives and municipalities to generate energy using non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels, he explained.

The controversial clause contradicts an earlier law prohibiting private companies from generating energy-using non-renewable resources, Rodríguez noted.

Eliminating the older law would undermine previous efforts to promote sustainable energy and would tarnish Costa Rica's reputation as world leader in clean energy, Rodríguez claims.


The government plans to meet with leaders of different Congressional factions and different environmentalist groups in the coming weeks to discuss the reform measures.