SOUTH AMERICA

Castilla’s unfair concession terms criticised

11 years ago

Juan Carlos Garrido, ICTSIs director of business development for the Americas, has publically criticised the terms for the recently announced development of Puerto Castilla, which is being backed by the Honduras Commission for the Promotion of Public-Private Alliances (Coalianza).

“The requirements are such that only SSA can meet them and therefore nobody else has any realistic options to even take part in this contest,” he said in local news reports, adding that everything has been designed to make it appear, albeit falsely, that there are many other interested parties.

As the terms and conditions are currently structured, he adds, no other company would be interested or take part in the project.

Henry Acosta, Coalianza’s executive secretary, has confirmed that SSA is associated with the project, stressing that “this is not a normal public tender”. Instead, he confirmed that it is a private sector initiative, launched by a group of local businessmen along with SSA, which will act as operator.

ICTSI’s concern is that terms and conditions attached to its own tender, at Puerto Cortés, are much more onerous than those imposed at Puerto Castilla, requiring more investment.

“It doesn’t make sense that they now want to open and modernise a new container port when we want to make Puerto Cortés the leading facility in the country,” he said.