Knock on wood: The two sides in the long-running dispute over a contract to manage and expand the country's main airport have come to yet another agreement that would have the expansion completed by December.
The Costa Rican government and the banks financing the project both gave ground in coming to the agreement Tuesday, according to the daily La Nación.
The Costa Rican government will, as requested, add five years to Alterra Partners' concession contract to operate the Juan Santamaría International Airport, just outside San José, bringing that contract to 25 years.
Meanwhile, the banks financing Alterra's expansion of the airport – headed up by the International Finance Corporation – will drop a demand that the Costa Rican government put a $9-million cap on the fines that could be levied on Alterra for delays in the project, which includes building five new boarding gates.
All that, of course, is pending approval of the agreement by the Comptroller General's office, which has to OK all government contracts. In 2006, the office rejected three revisions of an addendum designed to balance Alterra's finances to the satisfaction of banks (TT, Aug. 4, 2006). |
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