by Nick Cooke

Tourism on upward incline

Government figures indicate that tourism earnings continue to rise steadily, though the pace of growth is slower than it was in the late 1990s. Income in 2001 was $135.3 million, up almost $7 million over the previous year. Part of this upward trend is explained by an increase in the average amount spent per tourist per visit, going from $114.60 in 1990 to $280.10 in 2001. Visitors from Honduras lead the pack with that country representing around a quarter of the market. The United States follows with just under 20%. Another almost 38% of entries to Nicaragua came from El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Canada, Spain, and Germany combined amounted to 5.3% of the market, according to the Secretariat for Strategy and Coordination of the Presidency.

Central America joined forces recently in Spain during the International Tourism Fair under the slogan “Central America: so small, so big.” Each country in the region will chip in $50,000 a year to maintain a tourism promotion agency in Madrid slated to open in March.

Talks are underway with the Panamanian airline COPA to open a route from Europe direct to Central America, thereby bypassing the current connection in Miami. Iberia, the Spanish airline is carrying out a campaign to promote Nicaragua.

The World Tourism Organization estimates that tourism to the Central American region rose by almost 10 percent over the last year. Nicaraguan hotel operators report that their income has been on the upswing, too. Tourism is considered as one of the most important lines for the future development of the country along with free trade zones for manufacture and final assembly.

Coffee down, veggies up

You may not notice it at a Starbucks in a US airport concession area, but the world price of coffee is down to crisis levels for growers, due largely to a glut provoked by overproduction around the world. That, combined with bad harvests in recent years due to climatic factors and accumulated debts has led some Nicaraguan farmers to try other alternatives.

Lettuce, beetroot, sweet peppers, tomatoes, and local varieties of squash are sprouting up on farms formerly dedicated exclusively to coffee production. Some growers are opting for better management of the citrus trees sprinkled throughout their plantations, raising yields of oranges, mandarins, lemons, and grapefruit. Others have established poultry and egg operations.

Earnings from this produce may never reach those of the golden days of coffee growing because of a generally depressed economic situation. One hope on the horizon is the proliferation of new tourism developments and the possible arrival of increasingly more visitors to the country hungry for fresh fruit and vegetables with real taste, as opposed to those produced in their home countries with more modern techniques that sacrifice taste and color for production bulk.

Nevertheless, coffee has not been abandoned completely in the highlands of the country. For something different, you could always visit a plantation around April when the plants flower. The panorama of small white blossoms and the smell are unforgettable.

Transport infrastructure: getting better all the time

It is easier for visitors to get into and around Nicaragua. Managua’s Augusto César Sandino International Airport has undergone a major facelift over the last couple of years and more is to come with the modernization project undertaken by the federal airport administration, the EAAI. With financing from a $10,000,000 bond issue, the EAAI is also improving its airports on the Atlantic Coast.

At the same time, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure is pulling out all the stops with a highway improvement program. Included on the list of projects is the stretch from Ticuantepe, south of Managua to Granada on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. It is to be upgraded from the current two-lane blacktop to four lanes with bus bays. Not quite an autobahn but it will definitely make it an easier and more pleasant drive.

One of the major arteries from Managua to León is being refurbished while two stretches of the highway going east to the river port city of Rama will be worked on in the months to come. Work is almost completed on stretches of the Pan American highway in the north of the country. Delays due to construction are to be expected, but on the bright side, they will give drivers a chance to stop, stretch their legs, and view the scenery.

Meanwhile, potholing crews are at work on highways throughout the country, patching and repairing prior to the coming rainy season. Nevertheless, drivers should not let their concentration fade on the highways. Though there may be fewer craters, one must be ever vigilant for cows, horses, pigs, chickens, bicyclists, pedestrians, dogs, and vultures consuming the latest road kill.

Corruption Update

A prison by another name …

Former President Arnoldo Alemán is in custody, under house arrest on his coffee hacienda in El Crucero on the mesa to the southwest of Managua. Facing a number of criminal charges falling under the general category of corruption, the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) strongman was ordered into confinement late last year.

Normally, accused persons awaiting trial and sentence are locked up tight; however, in consideration of “special circumstances”, Judge Juana Méndez opted for a more comfortable alternative for the prisoner. Under police custody at his principal residence, Alemán is allowed to continue to oversee operations on his coffee farm and cattle ranch situated nearby.

The Modelo Prison in Tipitapa had already undergone extensive renovations of one wing in order to hold other figures from the previous government accused last year of financial wrongdoings involving public funds. Local humor has it that with Alemán, the doors would have to be widened considerably in order to accommodate his broad stature. Given the number of criminals presently confined and those facing proceedings it is surprising that no investors have come forth with the idea of building and running a white-collar prison, a kind of Sheraton for rich crooks.

Prison authorities state that they are waiting with open doors and barred windows to receive Alemán and are only waiting for the word from Judge Méndez. Meanwhile, Arnoldo has resorted to the tried and true ruse of medical infirmity to generate sympathy for his plight and forestall a possible transfer to a lock up.

Judicial proceedings march along at a pace impossible to measure with a slow-motion detector and no verdict in any of the cases involving the former president is expected to be issued in the near future.

More insinuations

Meanwhile, another can of worms from the corruption field is being opened. The former General Manager of the now extinct Interbank that went belly up in August 2000 is the only one in prison for that debacle that cost the country almost $210 million in deposit guarantees. José Felix Padilla, the former GM, decided to blow the lid off.

He released documents implicating Sandinista National Assembly Deputy Bayardo Arce in the maneuvers leading up to the breaking of the Interbank. Many in the country were wondering if the fight against corruption would focus fire on the Sandinista Party, the FSLN, the official opposition since 1990 after holding power in the country during the revolution years of the 1980s. Now, with Arce in the Interbank spotlight, these expectations are being met.

Naturally, Arce denies any such involvement and the question is raised of why Padilla did not produce this new “evidence” earlier. More counter-accusations followed by counter-revelations are expected in the weeks and months to come.

Arce also saw his visitor’s visa to the USA revoked last year while in transit through that country. He was questioned by US authorities and subsequently deported back to Nicaragua. Journalists checked with US Embassy officials about this revocation and in February it was let fall that Arce was suspected of “money laundering.”

Sour grapes behind bars

Another convict, Alex Centeno Roque, involved in the bank-breaking spree of 2000 through his companies, is stirring things up. He was sentenced in late January for his involvement in a coffee trading swindle involving about $20 million that was the tip of the iceberg of the Interbank “scam-dal.” He is complaining publicly and has apparently made veiled threats against a local judge, Sabino Hernández, for having accepted “gifts” from him while the trial was underway in exchange for “favorable” verdict.

Judge Hernández, of course, denies having received the alleged $17,500 (along with a bull and 20 cows). Notwithstanding, proof has been presented that he did travel to Panama during the trial with a friend of Centeno to meet with his brother Saul. He has been sanctioned by the Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Justice and suspended from his post. A public chastising is to come and he will likely be transferred to an administrative post. Debarring is not a common punishment in Nicaragua.

A new City Hall for Managua?

Managua Mayor Herty Lewites has confirmed that Taiwanese investors are interested in purchasing the installations in which the city government presently operates. They want to build a shopping center. In exchange, the same investors would construct a new city hall in an empty field opposite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the old Managua downtown destroyed in the earthquake of 1972.

Lewites also stated that the government of China-Taiwan is making a number of donations to the City of Managua, including a band shell for concerts on the shore of Lake Managua near other recreation facilities.