Industry Chamber Challenges ICE

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The Chamber of Industries has challenged the monopoly power company, ICE, to release a report on the financial situation of power generating.

The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) has agreed to study the Chamber's complaint. The case has its roots in a Chamber request for the study results last year, which the ICE top management rejected on the grounds of confidentiality.

In a press release, Chamber president Marco Meneses said he requested the data in the spring of last year. "However, a month and a day afterwards (May 16), (ICE) responded that the needed data had been declared as the institution's confidential information," Meneses added.

But the law on which ICE's confidentiality is based, N 8660, has as its title the "Strengthening and Modernization of Public Entities in the Telecommunications Sector." (Italics ours.)

The Chamber argues that this law applies to cell networks and the like and should not be interpreted as license to maintain secrecy from the public regarding such things as data on which electrical rates are based.

Commentary: ICE has long been a sacred cow in Costa Rica and served as a rallying point around which anti-CAFTA forces in the Legislative Assembly used to oppose the law striking down the ICE telecom monopoly, claiming "ICE is ours." The opposition to treading on ICE's toes even goes back to 2000, when then-president Miguel Angel Rodriguez tried to introduce the "Public Utilities Combo".

Indeed, during the 20th century, the public agency was admirable, bringing electricity throughout rural areas during the 1970s. But the days during which it was managed by public spirited men like Omar Dengo are over, unfortunately.

It has become merely another government bureaucracy, secretive, ingrown and paranoid about any incursion that might level the playing field it once called its private garden for a hundred years. Its feet dragging in the opening up of the cell phone market finally resulted in both President Laura Chinchilla and the telecom regulation agency Sutel to lose patience.

Moreover, Costa Rica suffers from the highest electricity rates in Central America. This is partly due to ICE's bureaucratic nature. In order to hide the actual salaries of some of its engineers and top management from the public, they often pay the same individual two or three separate salaries under varied headings.

We find it strange that ICE, a public agency, would attempt to hide financial data about electricity generation from the public and customers.