Q COSTA RICA — Mónica Araya, former executive president of the Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS)—Costa Rica’s National Insurance Institute, has accused then-President Rodrigo Chaves of threatening and pressuring her in early 2024 to award a contract for the country’s digital vehicle sticker, known as the Marchamo digital.
According to testimony Araya gave to prosecutors, Chaves wanted the INS to award the US$7.3 million contract to E-Pass, a consortium that included Brazil’s SGSV Soluciones Tecnológicas Integradas, Argentina’s Sistema Integrados de Control, and Hong Kong-registered Star Systems International.
Araya said the message from Chaves was effectively: award the contract or give up her position, La Nación reported.
The INS board ultimately declared the tender unsuccessful rather than awarding it to E-Pass, and the INS later launched a new procurement process.
Araya said that decision came after the INS’s compliance office reviewed the consortium and recommended against awarding it the contract. She told legislators that the contract was also US$1.8 million more expensive than the original winning bid, which had been annulled after an appeal to the Comptroller General.
Araya’s account places the dispute amid a broader series of government contracts involving SGSV. The company later appeared in a consortium awarded a US$13.8 million contract to supply 40 basic ambulances to the Fire Department, which is attached to the INS.
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The same company, in a separate consortium with state telecommunications firm Racsa and another Brazilian business, filed a US$1.3 million claim against the Ministry of Justice over a contract to supply electronic monitoring (ankle) bracelets.
Those later contracts do not, by themselves, establish that the companies acted improperly in the INS tender. The central question in Araya’s allegation is whether political pressure was applied to influence a public procurement process—and whether the decision to reject the bid was based on documented compliance concerns.
A disputed tender and a dismissal
The digital Marchamo contract was initially awarded to Consorcio PC Central Neology for US$5.53 million. The Comptroller General later annulled that award after an appeal by E-Pass.
Araya said Chaves then wanted the INS to award the contract to E-Pass, the next-ranked bidder.
She said the INS had not yet completed its compliance checks when the (Chaves) government pressed for a decision. Once those checks were carried out, Araya said, officials raised concerns and recommended that the contract not be awarded. She has not publicly disclosed the details, saying the matter is under investigation by prosecutors.
On May 8, 2024, the INS board declared the tender unsuccessful. Araya said Chaves dismissed her hours later. She had previously offered her resignation, she told legislators, but Chaves did not accept it at the time.
Araya first gave a statement to the Attorney General’s Office in early 2025, as a witness in an investigation into a separate alleged request by Chaves involving a government guarantee for a Mexican construction company. She later described the pressure surrounding the digital-sticker contract to lawmakers in December 2025.
She also told legislators that SGSV’s legal representative had contacted her directly by personal email to request a meeting about the tender. In her account to prosecutors, she said a lawyer for the consortium called INS board members to press them to award the contract. The compliance office, she said, had flagged alleged corruption cases involving the company in other South American countries.
La Nación said it sought comment from Chaves through the Presidential Communications Department but had received no response by publication time. The newspaper also sought comment from SGSV representative Igor de Oliveira. A journalist responding on his behalf said the matter was outside his hands and that he had not heard of it during his time with the company.
Analysis: procurement oversight is the key issue
The case raises a basic governance question: can public officials make procurement decisions based on technical review when senior political figures are pressing for a particular outcome? Araya’s account suggests the INS’s compliance process became a point of conflict precisely when the consortium’s bid was under consideration.
That account remains an allegation, not a finding of wrongdoing. Its significance will depend on evidence beyond the statements reported so far: the tender records, compliance assessments, communications between officials and bidders, and any findings by prosecutors or oversight bodies.
The La Nación article does not report a response from Chaves to the allegations, and it does not establish that the contract was improperly awarded; in fact, the INS did not award it to E-Pass.
The later ambulance and electronic-monitoring contracts add public interest because SGSV appears in each, but they are separate procurement matters with their own records and decision-makers. They should not be treated as proof of misconduct in the INS tender. They do make scrutiny of the company’s public-sector dealings—and of the processes used to select it—more consequential.
For now, the reported facts point to a serious dispute over political influence, compliance warnings, and the independence of a state institution. Whether the pressure Araya describes can be substantiated is for investigators to determine.