QCOSTARICA — He knew what was coming his way. For such he self-exiled himself – a better word that fled – from Costa Rica. Former MOPT minister Luis Amador made it clear last that he intended to get as far away from the “tentacles of evil”.
On Wednesday, the government of Rodrigo Chaves, reported that if officially filed a complaint against Amador with the Fiscalia (Prosecutor’s Office) for the case of the repair of the Guanacaste Airport (LIR) runway.
The information was confirmed by the press office of the Ministerio Publico (Attorney General’s Office) without specifying whether there are more people named in the file.
This is not new. Last week, shortly after the ‘situation’ was disclosed, leading to the removal of Amador as minister of public works and transportation, Chaves had announced his intention to submit a report to the Attorney General’s Office. The report aims to investigate a possible overpayment of two million US dollars in the tender awarded to the MECO company, which was approved by the former minister.
“That award cost the people of Costa Rica 2 million dollars more, because the terms of reference endorsed by the MOPT and the director of Civil Aviation have indications that they were designed so that the company that ended up winning would win,” said the president.
On Wednesday of last week, Amador gave brief statements on this issue and then, on Friday, he left the country to go into self-exile in Canada.
“In this process, the National Emergency Commission, together with Civil Aviation, was the one that carried out the preparation of the terms of reference, its review and approval, the launching of the tender, the evaluation of offers, the award, the appeals and finally firmness,” Amador had said.
The complaint filed by the Chaves administration is a separate procedure from the file that the Prosecutor’s Office opened in January against Chaves and Amador, to investigate whether the crime of “ideological falsehood” was committed when processing through an emergency decree (issued in June 2023) the works awarded to MECO to fix the runway of the Daniel Oduber airport, a procedure that prevented controls prior to this contract.
Among those investigated in this file, in addition to Chaves and Amador, are Alejandro Picado, president of the National Emergency Commission (CNE, entity with which the works were awarded), Natalia Díaz, Minister of the Presidency, and Fernando Naranjo, executive director of Civil Aviation.
In addition, the Legislative Assembly has also begun investigating Amador for the airport runway and the DEKRA case, if you will recall, in 2022, the MOPT announced the awarding of the vehicular inspection service to the German-based company and Amador announced the vehicular revision would be free, which was never the case.
