During a recent visit to the city of Liberia, President Laura Chinchilla did not mince any words when she sharply responded to comments made by a labor union leader and a legislator who are not happy with the investment of more than $750,000 in patrol cars, motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to augment law enforcement operations in the formerly “forgotten province” of Guanacaste.

In late 2013, President Chinchilla announced her intention of spending more time in Guanacaste, and she truly has. The Costa Rica Star has closely followed her constant visits to the province, which have thus far yielded the following benefits:

• Mortgage debt forgiveness
• Free housing for destitute families
• Affordable housing for low-income families
• Vocational training centers
• New and remodeled schools
• A major irrigation canal project

Direct interventions in Guanacaste by the Labor and Education Ministries plus donations recently presented by the Ambassador of Japan can also be added to the list above since President Chinchilla had direct influence in those. In late February, President Chinchilla delivered the following vehicles to the Liberia detachment of Fuerza Publica, Costa Rica’s national police force:

• 2 Toyota Prado (Land Cruiser) SUVs
• 8 Toyota RAV4 compact SUVs
• 26 street/off-road motorcycles
• 4 ATVs

Legislator Carmen Munoz (PAC) expressed dismay with regard to the purchase of the vehicles, qualifying it as a “luxury vehicle fleet.” Albino Vargas, president of the powerful labor union known as the Association of Government and Private Sector Employees (Spanish acronym: ANEP), made allusions to the high maintenance costs of a Toyota Prado.

The response by President Chinchilla was swift:

“That labor union and others are enemies of Fuerza Publica. They want it to be what it was for many years: A Cinderella public institution. They want police officers to be poorly paid, or they only want them to wear the used uniforms donated by other countries, or they don’t want them to be trained, or even have adequate transportation.”

As President Chinchilla prepares to turn over Costa Rica’s mandate, which will very likely become the responsibility of leading candidate Luis Guillermo Solis of the Citizens’ Action party (Spanish initials: PAC), she is not suffering fools lightly. Her sharp responses are not making her any friends in light of dismal approval ratings. Still, President Chinchilla has delivered on the two fronts covered in this article: Fuerza Publica has come a long way in the current administration and Guanacaste has seen plenty of direct government intervention. These public works, however, have not come cheap, and Costa Rica’s public debt has grown considerably as a result.

Source: Carlos Eduardo Vargas for La Nacion