COSTA RICA NEWS — The request for the Nicaraguan company Nicabus, to offers service between Managua and San José has been denied by the Consejo de Transporte Público (CTP) – Costa Rica’s Public Transport Council.
The request for permission to operate in the country was denied on October 1. According to the deputy director of legal affairs of the CTP, Susana López, said the denial was because the person who made the request in 2012 was not the legal representative of the company, and that the company is not based in Costa Rica.
The plans of Nicabus is to also offer customers travel to Panama, but was not included in the application, according to the CTP.
Former Nicaraguan legislator Enrique Quiñonez, the owner of the Nicaraguan company, criticized the CTP decision in the social media, including Facebook.
“Our lawyers are studying the decision to appeal the decision (…),” said Quiñonez.
On October 13, a group of Nicabus workers protested in front of the Ministerio de Infraestructura y Transporte de Nicaragua (MTI) – Nicaragua’s transport ministry – demanding the government enforce the principle of reciprocity with Costa Rica.
The company says it has four buses ready to start operating. The Nicabus website, which is currently being forwarded to another site, showed the company having a terminal in San José’s Coca Cola district.
The CTP official said that if the company has already purchased bus units it did so at their own risk.
Costa Rica has four bus operators with regular service to and from Nicaragua:: Ticabus (which also provides service throughout Central America), Nica Express and Central Line.
