Quick note: this was meant to be a news recap due to a recent lull in articles, but they were condensed to a long rant. I am not a political science major nor an economist and I would rather stand corrected than uneducated, so if anyone disagrees, please share your opinion!

From the outside, a lot of Costa Rica government projects appear to have productive goals: lower unemployment, promote national production and domestic consumption, attract foreign investment and so on. However, the reality of recent proposed or instated policies has been to let the consumers foot the bill, deny workers rights and overlook the environmental impact of their decisions in favor of quick income for the country, and themselves.

All you have to do is scan the local headlines, and you’ll find yourself scratching your head in wonder. I have always thought that a developing country has the benefit of learning lessons from the mistakes and successes of others. They seem to have missed these lessons, maybe because their school wasn’t constructed in time for the next semester’s classes, or the Ministry of Education forgot to assign teachers to their district.

Here is a list of things that government officials consider less important than their salaries:

The Environment

The position of Minister of the Environment has one main purpose: protect the environment. However, when you are mingling daily with millionaires to review their development plans and the impact they have on the environment, sometimes you lose sight of job and focus on things at hand[s reach]. Ex-minister Roberto Dobles resigned recently after several construction permits were granted against better judgment to people who happened to share the same blood line as Mr. Dobles. President Arias had his hand in one of these cases regarding a large mine in the southern Caribbean, which had the presidential seal of approval. He unfortunately evoked a wave of amnesia and uncertainty among government bureaucrats and allegations against him were never proven to be substantial.

Education

Another headline that caught my eye recently details a new project being implemented in some of the nation’s jails to offer labor intensive work, high school education and even college level education to inmates as they serve their time. I sat watching an accused rapist discussing his chances for a better life. At the same time, friends of mine struggle to pay for their own college education as access to scholarships is less prevalent. Costa Rica has set a certain percentage of its GDP to be destined to public universities, so with the crisis cutting the nation’s income, they are set to cut funding to four public universities to the tune of millions of dollars, which will directly affect scholarship availability.

The Consumer

A bill promoted by the government wants to force Costa Ricans to buy national beans (a product used in nearly every dish in this Central American country) even though their price is 54% higher than those produced in Nicaragua. Specifically, a 46 kilo sack of beans from Nicaragua costs more than $20 less than one from Costa Rica, due to lower salaries, the price of pesticides in the country, and Costa Rican soil and seeds offering a small harvest in comparison with other countries.

National bean producers still make next to nothing and it is the bean distribution and marketing companies that mark up prices. For example, even though the international tax on beans was recently disposed of, there was never a price cut to the consumer. This new form of market manipulation and protectionism would directly hurt the poorest consumer who may no longer be able to afford to buy the main source of protein in their diet.

A better solution? Don’t make the consumer foot the bill and let the government offer subsidies to bean farmers. If pesticide prices can’t be lowered, and it isn’t a productive industry, money could be spent training them how to switch crops.

This isn’t an isolated case with a single answer, however. Why does everything seem to cost double in this country? Why do wealthy Costa Ricans fly to Miami to go shopping? Cars, for example are marked up nearly 100% due to import taxes. Where does that money go? I don’t see a national car industry to protect, so again, government policies seem set to hurt the consumer, their constituency, for their own benefit.

National Wages

President Arias’s proposed Shield Plan is an attempt to protect, or “shield” (get it?), Costa Rica from the negative effects of the economic recession. To avoid unemployment, the plan proposes to override the Worker’s Bill of Rights temporarily by allowing companies to cut work hours in order to employ the same number of people for less, and therefore not fire anyone. Sounds like magic right? No. What about the workers that just had their measly salaries cut in half? Most would have to give up their homes, look for second jobs, etc. Again, the solution looks nice from the outside as big business and the government don’t have to shell out any money. The victim? The ordinary citizen.

Infrastructure

If you’ve been watching the headlines as long as I have, it seems like an awful lot of money has been coming into Costa Rica to fund better road systems, but progress is minimal. I have heard of several loans from the Central America Economic Integration Bank (BCIE) to fund large road projects, but Costa Rica’s road system remains to be ranked one of the worst in the world. If it’s a money issue, why do Nicaragua and poverty stricken nations in Africa have better roads than Costa Rica? Many bet that it goes back to the issue that the nation’s elite are content to scratch each other’s backs all day, line their pockets, hire distant cousins to hold cabinet positions and perform over priced contractual work for the government so they can retire to gated communities and family compounds. That’s what was in the job description after all.

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Filed under: Reader Opinion & Stories, Travel on March 19th, 2009