Nicaragua Network

1. New school year to start next week
2. Unions present proposal on social security to Assembly
3. FAO praises Nicaragua for poverty reduction, food security
4. CID-Gallup poll shows support for government
5. Assembly passes law to benefit former combatants
6. More property claims resolved; US urged to issue waiver
7. Final funding obtained for Tumarin hydroelectric project
8. Sucre to be launched from Nicaragua
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1. New school year to start next week

On Feb. 11, 1.6 million pre-school, primary and secondary students will begin a new academic year in the nation’s public schools.  Registration began on Feb. 1, with parents noting improvements in many school buildings and playgrounds. Vice-Minister of Education Jose Treminio said that improving the quality of the teaching staff will again be the highest priority in order to improve academic achievement and increase retention.  The Education Ministry will distribute 400,000 backpacks with school supplies to the poorest children.  The Ministry also announced that pupils’ desks were being repaired and replaced throughout the country.  This is the sixth year of free public education after an extended period of IMF and World Bank mandated school fees which ended when the Sandinista Party returned to government in 2007.  After almost doubling with the removal of fees in 2007, enrollment has leveled off at 1.6 million with the government estimating that 200,000 children still remain out of school. 

Teachers continue to demand higher salaries noting that Nicaraguan salaries are still the lowest in Central America.  One teachers’ union, the United Teaching Union [Unidad Sindical Magisterial], added its voice to that of the other unions demanding that the age at which workers can receive a social security pension not be raised [see story below].  Teachers can now retire with a full pension at 55 but the International Monetary Fund wants Nicaragua to raise that age to 65 for everyone. 

With low teachers’ salaries, education quality continues to be a concern.  This was reflected in the recently released results of the entrance exam for the Nicaraguan National Autonomous University (UNAN).  Fifty-eight percent of the 11,582 who took the exam passed when their grades from their last year in secondary school were factored in.  However, only 2,852 passed the Spanish written exam with a grade of 60% or better and only 246 passed the mathematics exam.  Alejandro Genet of the UNAN said, “The objective of the exam is placement; it is not to evaluate the secondary education system.  If they took the exam, it’s because they already passed their classes.”  (Informe Pastran, Feb. 1; Radio La Primerisima, Feb. 1, 3; El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 29; La Prensa, Jan. 30)

2. Unions present proposal on social security to Assembly

A group of union leaders presented a petition signed by 15,000 union members to National Assembly Deputy Alba Palacios outlining labor’s proposals for reform of the Social Security Law.  The government and the business community have expressed their support for the changes mandated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which would gradually raise the retirement age from 60 to 65 and require workers to pay into the system for 29 years instead of the current 14 ½ in order to receive a full pension.   The unions reject these changes and propose other measures that they say will prevent the system from collapsing. Among the unions represented were the Jose Benito Escobar Sandinista Union Central (CST-JBE), the General Confederation of Independent Workers (CGTI), the Sugar Workers Confederation, unions representing seaport and airport workers, and free trade zone workers.

Luis Barbosa of the CST-JBE said that the number of workers in the system had to be increased by 35%, growing at an annual rate of 7% until that number was achieved, thus assuring viability through 2047.  He noted that there were enough workers in the formal sector of the economy to achieve this goal, including 600,000 farm workers and workers in the fishing industry.  He said that the law, as currently proposed, is unclear about sanctions for employers who do not pay into social security for their workers.  The union proposal would clarify those penalties, he indicated.  Miguel Ruiz, also of the CST-JBE, said that the labor proposal includes the form in which the central and local governments would pay their debts to the social security system, transparency in the use of social security funds, and recuperation of money owed by private business among other measures.  He noted that while the economically active population of Nicaragua is 2.7 million people, only 600,000 are enrolled in the social security system [up from 400,000 five years ago].

Palacios, a Sandinista who serves as First Secretary of the Assembly, said she would send the petition to the appropriate committee.  The Sandinistas have sufficient votes to pass the reform measures on their own, but as Informe Pastran points out, “they require legitimacy more than legality.”  In the recently released CID-Gallup poll, 68% opposed the reforms, including 66% of Sandinistas, while only 27% of those surveyed supported them. (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 2; Informe Pastran, Jan. 31, Feb. 4; La Prensa, Feb. 1; Radio La Primerisima, Feb. 1)

3. FAO praises Nicaragua for poverty reduction, food security

Fernando Soto, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative, praised Nicaragua for the Sandinista government’s program to provide free meals for school children. He said that 1.05 million students are receiving a meal a day and noted that this is not a situation one normally encounters in Central America.  He called Nicaragua a leader in the reduction of poverty, especially extreme poverty, and in the improvement of the quality of life for thousands. He noted that providing the school meal is a community activity involving the government, parents, and volunteers. “That process has few resources, but much energy, will, and social involvement” showing that it is possible to combat malnutrition, he said. The government-supplied beans, rice, corn, and powdered milk are supplemented at over 400 institutions by fruits and vegetables from school gardens.

Soto noted that 55% of the population was malnourished in 1990-1992, but in 2010-2012, that percentage had dropped to 20%, “one of the most notable advances in the [Latin American] region.” While acknowledging that was still a high percentage of malnourishment, he said the progress was in the right direction and that the FAO would continue to help improve it. He said that Nicaragua “has the terrain covered” with multi-sector policies, laws, good governance, and efforts to coordinate local governments and their communities. He also announced that the FAO will work with the Ministry of Family Economics on the Healthy Yard Program which this year will provide 120,500 families with seeds for vegetables, fruit, and medicinal plants in an effort to strengthen food security and better diet through family gardening in all the departments of the country.

In other poverty reduction news, 54 families who previously lived on Managua’s Chureca dump will receive new housing in the Virgin of Guadalupe neighborhood and 15 families from the Santa Elena neighborhood in District VI will move into their new homes in Sabana Grande. An additional 21 affordable housing units will be given to other needy families. New galvanized roofing panels will be delivered to families in need in Somoto, Telpaneca, Totgalpa, Palacaguina, and District III in Managua. (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 29, Jan. 30; Informe Pastran, Jan. 30, Feb. 1, Feb. 4)

4. CID-Gallup poll shows support for government

CID-Gallup last week released the results of a poll of 1,212 adults nationwide taken between Jan. 8 and 13.  Fifty-six percent of those polled sympathized with the Sandinista Party; 37% said that they had no political party; the Constitutional Liberal Party had the support of 4% of those surveyed and the Independent Liberal Party 3%.  The poll had a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 2.81%.

While the poll showed high levels of support for President Daniel Ortega and his wife communications coordinator Rosario Murillo, it also showed an increase in concern, especially in the cities, about jobs, up from 31% who were worried about steady employment in 2011 to 40% today.  The report from CID-Gallup said, “Before 2011, the majority of adults did not sympathize with the FSLN.  But beginning in 2011, one can see a consolidation of Sandinista support and an ever greater weakening of support for the opposition.”  Murillo leads in favorable opinion ranking with 60% favorable while her husband President Ortega has a 40% favorable rating.  Eduardo Montealegre, seen as a leader of the opposition, obtained a minus12%, even lower than the much maligned head of the Supreme Electoral Council Roberto Rivas whose rating was minus 3%. 

Opposition reaction to the poll varied.  PLI National Assembly deputy Maria Eugenia Sequeira said, “I note that these polls are exaggerated; I am not going to worry about that poll.”  The president of the US funded organization Hagamos Democracia, Roger Arteaga, said that the poll was a call to reflection and that the opposition should work to counteract the tendency that it revealed.  (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 30; Informe Pastran, Jan. 30)

5. Assembly passes law to benefit former combatants

On Jan. 29, the National Assembly passed a law that established a series of benefits for those who had participated in armed conflicts in Nicaragua.  The bill, proposed by the Sandinista Party, was written to include demobilized from the Sandinista Popular Army, the Ministry of the Interior, former counterrevolutionaries (contras) who are now known , even by their former opponents, as the Nicaraguan Resistance, including as well the Yatama Indigenous Resistance.  The law was designed to reorder a maze of programs to assure “basic needs for the productive reinsertion into society of [the demobilized] and historic collaborators who participated in an organized fashion in the struggle for liberation in the period from 1956 to July 19, 1979” and for combatants on both sides from the conflict of the 1980s.    

The measure, which will be run by the Peace and Reconciliation Commission led by Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo (who was honored last week as he celebrated his 87^th birthday), includes widows’ pensions, access to housing, credit, tax exemptions for such things as cemetery lots, and more.  Not included are former members of the Somoza-era National Guard or former combatants who have organized illegal property takeovers.   Members of the military who have retired after 1994 are covered under a different retirement plan. Those who wish to receive benefits must sign up with a Registry of Former Combatants that will be set up by the Supreme Court.  The law answers the demands of groups of demobilized who blocked several major highways last year saying they were not receiving benefits. (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 29; El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 29; La Prensa, Jan. 30)

6. More property claims resolved; US urged to issue waiver

The Attorney General’s office announced that 14 cases of US citizens’ claims for property confiscated in the 1980s have been resolved, ten more than during the same period last year. US aid and US votes for loans from international financial institutions are predicated on the issuance in July of each year of a “waiver” declaring that Nicaragua is making progress in the resolution of property claims. [Most claimants are naturalized US citizens who were Nicaraguan when their property was confiscated.]

Jose Adan Aguerri, president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) complimented the Attorney General’s Office on the “good pace” of resolution and said there is no reason the US should withhold the waiver this year. He also noted that Nicaragua has requested that claims that have gone years without required action by the claimants should be removed from the list. If they are removed as anticipated, the number of cases yet to be resolved will be reduced. Attorney General Hernan Estrada stated that there remain 197 US citizens with 377 unresolved property claims. [Editor’s Note: Many of the remaining claimants were high officials of the Somoza dictatorship or officers in the National Guard who have been accused of gross human rights violations. No move was made to compensate those claimants under the US-supported governments of Chamorro, Aleman, and Bolaños either.] (El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 31; Informe Pastran, Jan. 30)

7. Final funding obtained for Tumarin hydroelectric project

South Korea has approved a loan of US$48 million for the construction of the Tumarin hydroelectric project. Government spokesperson Rosario Murillo announced that the loan will be for 40 years with a 10 year grace period and concessionary terms. She called the project “strategic for the development and generation of clean energy” and for providing electricity to rural communities. When completed in four years, Tumarin, on the Rio Grande de Matagalpa in the municipality of La Cruz de Rio Grande in the South Atlantic Autonomous Region, will produce 253 megawatts of electricity, increasing Nicaragua’s renewable energy production and saving 80,000 barrels of oil a year.

The project will cost US$1.1 billion and is being constructed by the Brazilian state-owned company Eletrobras and the Brazilian conglomerate Queiroz Galvao.  Other funding includes a loan of US$342 million from the Brazil’s National Bank of Economic and Social Development, and US$252 million from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE). The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank may also participate. With the South Korean loan and the commitment of Electrobras and Queiroz Galvao to provide up to 42% of the financing, Nicaragua has obtained sufficient funding to complete the project. Permits for site preparation, including construction and improvement of 50 kilometers of roads, have been granted. A new town, to be called Nuevo Apawas will be built to house the 300 families who will be displaced by the dam and lake.  The project is expected to generate 3,000 jobs directly and provide 28% of the country’s hydroelectric power.  (El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 31)

8. Sucre to be launched from Nicaragua

At the end of February or early in March, Nicaragua will be the launching pad for the Sucre, the virtual currency that the members of the ALBA cooperative trade market will be using for imports and exports within ALBA. Countries in ALBA besides Nicaragua are: Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dominica. The Sucre is a “virtual currency,” essentially a bookkeeping unit that will be used by the Central Banks of the ALBA countries to keep track of their trade without resorting to the dollar. The Sucre will allow countries to keep fewer dollars to back up international trade. Importers and exporters within the ALBA countries will be paid in their national currencies for their goods and services. The decision to launch the Sucre in Nicaragua was taken at an ALBA meeting in Caracas on Jan. 30.

Treasury Minister Ivan Acosta said that Nicaragua’s trade in Sucres would likely be principally in agricultural products but he said that there was interest in using the currency for trade in technology and petrochemical products as well.  Oscar Aleman of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Industry expressed the hope that, with the use of the Sucre, trade with Ecuador and other ALBA countries would increase. (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 30, 31: La Prensa, Feb. 1, 2; El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 31; Informe Pastran Jan. 31)