The Costa Rican-North American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), called on the Costa Rican Government to accept, immediately, the guidelines of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in matters of public contracting, which aim to guarantee open procedures for the competition, the no-discrimination, and the observance of adequate transparency norms, all these with the objective of guaranteeing a better use of the State resources.

The concern originates in the reports made by several congress members about apparent abusive use of direct contracting between public law entities that evidence that direct contracting of State companies, including the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), RACSA, Heredia Public Service Company (ESPH), and others, do not seem to answer to criteria of efficiency and effectiveness, but to an unhealthy practice of eluding contest procedures and avoid the participation of third parties in the regimen of competition.

“The contracting procedures should not be used to artificially maintain public companies that have not managed to operate efficiently in a market of competition; state companies are not an end on their own, they must respond to the interest of the general population, satisfy a public end, if these companies have stopped fulfilling this role then their continuity should be considered instead of sustaining them through direct contracts that undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of public healthy management of State resources”, said Elias Soley, President of AmCham Costa Rica.