QCOSTARICA – The President of the Incofer (the national railway) Guillermo Santana, says he fully accepts responsibility for the accident Friday morning of two trains colliding head-on and resulting in 106 injured, but says he will not resign the office.
For now Santana said he will focus on investigating the real causes of the unfortunate accident, that he blaming the lack of resources and technology.
Santana is the first to admit the Incofer faces many challenges (problems). One of those (challenges) now is how to run a commuter train system made of up for five trains, with two of them out of service.
Santana said he will be delivering a full report of the situation to President Luis Guillermo Solis, but did not specify a time frame.
For his part, President Solis, on Friday, during a visit to Limon, said replacing Santana will not solve the problems with the train.
“The legislators demanding the resignation of Mr. Guillermo Santana should be passing a law to strengthen the Incofer, that’s what we need, we need an Incofer with investment capacity,” said Solis.
“Calling for the head of the chief executive of Incofer, at this time, is irresponsible,” concluded the President.
The bill refered to by the President would allow the Incofer to attract external funding to create an electric train system for the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM), among other projects.
President Solis added that the train crash Friday morning demonstrates the need to modernize the rail service in the country.
For far this year (2015), there have been 70 incidents between the commuter train and vehicles (and pedestrians) – almost one a day – on the 64 kilometres of active track: Cartago – San Jose – Belen and San Jose – Heredia Centre.
