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“Inefficient” ICE doing roadwork is “absurd” idea: Otto Guevara

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June 4th, 2015 (InsideCostaRica.com) Rep. Otto Guevara (ML) described as “absurd” a suggestion made by President Luis Guillermo Solis on Friday that the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) should participate in infrastructure projects to help improve the country’s crumbling roadways.

 

“You see what happened with Pirrís and Reventazón,” Guevara said during the plenary session of the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, referring to cost overruns on the two hydroelectric projects.  “Be careful, very careful, involving the country in agreements with a company that has proven to be quite inefficient in the construction of public works in this country.”

 

President Solis on Friday said he wanted to see ICE assist in roadway projects while attending the commissioning of the Cachi hydroelectric plant expansion in Jiménez de Cartago.

 

“It would be an unjustified waste not using the accumulated experience of ICE in conducting public works,” the president said.

 

The president called for legislative support should legal reforms be necessary to allow ICE to develop and improve roads, bridges, and tunnels, as such work falls outside ICE’s government mandate.

 

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  • Ken Morris

    Since I’m no fan of ICE either, it is tempting to agree with Guevara. However, I don’t.

    What Guevara overlooks is that road building and maintenance in CR is already grossly inefficient and riddled with cost overruns, not to mention corruption. He also overlooks the reality that even his libertarian political philosophy understands that public works projects like roads must be undertaken by government.

    ICE may not be the right agency to assume responsibility, but it is probably no worse than the alternatives, and Solís does have a point about it having a good background of expertise to draw from.

    It’s good that Solís is trying to reconfigure all this, and it would be good if Guevara got on board to help with the reconfiguration rather than simply badmouthed ICE.

    In short, Guevara should either proposed a better solution or shut up.

  • Derryl Hermanutz

    Guevara seems to believe on pure faith that “the market” will always produce better results than a publicly owned enterprise like ICE. But name one large privately built infrastructure project that has not gone over budget, and taxpayers have ponied up an additional 20, 50, 100% over the “quoted” cost. The private sector is able to earn profits on projects that the government runs at a loss, only because as taxpayers we pay for all the “market externalities” like cost overruns and worker education and social subsides: costs that are not paid by the private operator. As fee-based infrastructure users (e.g. tolls on Ruta 27) we pay the project’s capital and operating costs and the owner’s profits; and as taxpayers we pay for all the externalities. A few months ago the “private” Ruta 27 operator asked the government for a 50% increase in its contracted road maintenance tolls — or government aid — due to the “unforeseen” high costs of maintaining the road. It is unthinkable that the operator could be forced to perform the contract and lose his own money for underbidding the job, because in “the free market” governments bail out businesses to guarantee private profits, right?

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