Nicaragua suffers record fuel increase and the only one that wins is Daniel Ortega’s family

“Black Sundays” the population is calling them. Nicaraguan gas stations change the prices of their screens every Sunday. In the past, they went up or down, depending on the behavior of the international hydrocarbon market. But for 19 weeks IFuel prices have stopped falling and have only increased, to the point of becoming the most expensive in Central America.

None of the commercial reasons they gave explains these prices, believes economist Enrique Saénz, who wonders: “How is it that the rest of the countries in the region, which still do not produce oil and with conditions similar to ours, have prices? 50 cents on average per gallon less than that of Nicaragua? “

“There is a monopoly in the import and distribution of fuel and this monopoly is held by the Ortega Murillo family”, also assures economist Oscar René Vargas. “They determine the prices at will and at their will and this money does not go to the State but to the private property of the Ortega y Murillo family ”.

Enrique Sáenz thinks the same thing. According to the economist, to show the overvaluation suffered by fuels in Nicaragua, the profit margins of the company must be analyzed in relation to other countries in the zone and not always at the final price, because the taxes that are charged are different in each country. .

A study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) found that Nicaragua’s profit margins start to separate sharply from the profit margins of the rest of the Central American countries from 2007.

“What happened after 2007?” Enrique Sáenz wonders. “Two things: first, Daniel Ortega came to the government and, secondly, they assumed the monopoly of imports and part of the distribution of hydrocarbons ”.

Sáenz insists that the explanation for today’s prices lies in the past. Recall that in the government before Ortega, under the presidency of Enrique Bolaños, the hydrocarbon sector in Nicaragua was also in private hands and the profit margins were more or less equal to those of the rest of the countries of Central America.

After Ortega came to power in January 2007, it was created an agreement with Venezuela and Albanisa is created, a powerful binational company that would process nearly all imports of finished oil and fuel, or roughly six million barrels per year.

According to Albanisa’s charter, 49 percent of the shares belonged to the state-owned company Petróleos de Nicaragua (Petronic) and the remaining 51 percent to Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). However, it was quickly questioned that the Nicaraguan state participation was primarily used to make state resources available to Albanisa, and the secrecy with which the accounts were handled made it difficult to see who would draw the funds. profits.

For 2011, Petronic reported profits to the national budget of just $ 2 million, despite the company already running operations of more than $ 400 million a year.

To store Venezuelan oil and fuel, Ortega stripped Esso of the storage tanks it leased, arguing that they would be run by the state. To take the US oil company off the market, it was alleged that it collected $ 5.5 million in unpaid taxes in previous years.

The secrecy with which information is treated in Nicaragua makes it impossible to establish with documents who will keep the profits and who are the owners of the companies created under the shadow of Albanisa. The public property register has gone “underground”, so that a citizen cannot know without the authorization of the company who are the partners and the capital which he manages or simply find the creation of a new company. However, there are many sons that lead to the Ortega Murillo family.

The company Nicaraguan petroleum distributor (DNP) acquired in 2009 by Albanisa to distribute fuel in the country, it was managed by YAdira Leets until 2018, then wife of Rafael Ortega Murillo, son of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

In December 2019, Nicaraguans learned of the existence of a company called Zanzíbar S. A. that the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned for allegedly concealing the profits of the DNP, which was also sanctioned on that occasion. The Zanzíbar company was run by Rafael Ortega Murillo and the offices were in the housing complex that the Ortega Murillo family created to live and run the country. This complex has a security perimeter that prevents public access.

“There is a monopoly that they have clearly established on imports of oil from Venezuela. This control lasted for several years until Venezuelan oil cooperation collapsed. The Petroleum Distribution Company (DNP) magically went, as no one knew the explanation, to be privately owned by the family in government. They not only had a monopoly on imports for a long time, but also a near-monopoly on warehousing and a distribution slice.Sáenz explains.

“With the sanctions against DNP, they invent certain companies to try to cushion the blow,” he adds. “There is obviously no evidence that those who put this bounty on the stock market are them, however, it is natural to assume a conspiracy and I may, at my own risk, express this opinion without having any further explanation.”

To justify the fuel prices in Nicaragua, it has been alleged by the ruling party and the parties involved that Nicaragua does not have a port in the Caribbean and that fuel from the Gulf of Mexico must therefore bypass the Panama Canal. to be able to unload in the Nicaraguan Pacific. It has also been said that Nicaragua’s reduced storage capacity prevents buying more oil when its price drops.

“It is not because of the oil prices or because Nicaragua does not have a port in the Caribbean, because in the same situation are El Salvador and Guatemala whose prices are lower”, explains the economist. Regarding storage, he recommends that a country’s capacity be measured in time and not in volume. “How many months of consumption does a country have the capacity to store? Here we see that Nicaragua is not the one in Central America, ”he assures us.

The engineer César Arévalo, expert in hydrocarbons, goes further: he assures that there is a collusion with the regional oil companies which operate in Nicaragua, which, since Albanisa was put out of play by the American sanctions, are in charge of oil imports. . “Why in El Salvador does the same UNO or PUMA company sell a gallon of fuel cheaper than at one of its stations in Nicaragua?”

A Nicaraguan pays about 70 cents more for a gallon of super gasoline and 82 cents more per gallon of regular gasoline than a Salvadoran pays in his country.

Arevalo believes that those who run Nicaragua’s hydrocarbon industry increased their profit margins during the years of low oil prices. Prices haven’t fallen at the same rate as oil, and those margins have been used up, he says.

Enrique Sáenz considers that the upward scale suffered by fuels in the country is determined by the coup of sanctions against what he calls the “mafia in power”.

“The sanctions and the financial headquarters of the mafia in power are causing him serious economic damage. As the international financial headquarters of these shady companies tighten, they must find a way to make up for these losses somewhere and they are doing so in a way that is not only irresponsible, but almost criminal by unloading the machete on the backs of Nicaraguans. “, he says.

“They’re playing with fire,” he says. “They misjudge the patience of the Nicaraguan people, they misjudge the repressive capacity they have and the intimidation capacity they have, because it affects not only the motorcyclist or the taxi driver, but also the producers. Every Nicaraguan is impoverished in everything he consumes ”.

According to Saénz, the oil surcharge punishes an impoverished population. “According to official figures, nearly 70 percent of the population is underemployed, meaning they work every other day, earn less than the minimum wage, or are unemployed.”

Oscar René Vargas, economist and sociologist, considers that the money from the fuel surcharge is intended to cover the expenses of the regime that were previously paid with the Venezuelan cooperation, among which the paramilitary wage bill, which according to his calculations is between the five one thousand and ten thousand articles.

“Thanks to this oil surcharge, they make the Nicaraguans pay for their own repressors, the paramilitaries.», He concludes.

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