Costa Rica's efficiency drive and the disguised privatization of the state

The package of administrative and institutional reforms pushed by the government of Laura Fernández draws on the rhetoric of "modernization and spending efficiency" to justify cutting the state's regulatory capacity in labor and environmental matters.

Under the premise of simplifying procedures to attract private investment, labor inspections on agricultural farms are being reduced and ecological impact controls weakened.

At the same time, proposals to sell emblematic state assets, such as the Banco de Costa Rica (BCR), are presented as magic solutions to reduce public debt. Yet parting with profitable public companies that generate annual earnings for the treasury is a poor financial bargain that will deprive the state of permanent revenue in the future.

Costa Rican citizens do not need the dismantling of their public oversight institutions or the privatization of their historic assets, but rather a strong, transparent social democratic state with real capacity to confront the growing social inequality and the infiltration of organized crime into the local economy.