OIL PROFITS TAX: GON HAVING IT BOTH WAYS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MANAGUA 000394 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/17/2016 TAGS: EPET EINV PREL PGOV NU SUBJECT: OIL PROFITS TAX: GON HAVING IT BOTH WAYS REF: 05 MANAGUA 2613 Classified By: Ambassador Paul A. Trivelli; reasons 1/4 (b),(d),(e) ¶1. (C) Summary: The February 13 political &deal8 that ended the week-long Managua bus strike over rate increases continues to reverberate in the political sphere and the business community. Representatives of the FSLN, Alternativa Cristiana, and Camino Cristiano signed a document with the FSLN Mayor of Managua in the presence of Cardinal Obando y Bravo and an OAS representative, committing to introduce a law which will create a special &temporary8 tax on oil company profits that, at least in the case of Nicaragua,s only refinery, amounts to a confiscation of all profits. The tax is supposed to be &reviewed8 in four months, during which period the GON will supposedly ensure import of new Japanese buses for which passengers will be happy to pay higher fares. The proposal generated immediate protests from private sector organizations, and the umbrella organization COSEP issued a press statement, along with AMCHAM and the Italian-Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce, calling on the Assembly to reject the tax, reject further subsidies to the transport collectives, instruct the competent authority (city of Managua) to apply rate increases, and if that is not done, to transfer the city transport council to the central government. Nevertheless, a draft bill to implement the tax has been introduced in the legislature, and FSLN leader Daniel Ortega, in full campaign mode, has excoriated the &shameless, thieving, grasping, lying8 oil companies, the private sector and political groups who oppose the law, and the &subservient8 media that has generally taken their side. FSLN Managua Mayor Nicho Marenco and Cardinal Obando y Bravo both called upon the Assembly to enact the law. End Summary ¶2. (C) Augustin Fuentes, general manager of Esso Standard, Nicaragua,s only refinery, called on Ambassador February 16 to update us on the status of the confiscatory oil profits tax that is being touted as the &solution8 to the transport crisis. He emphasized that the tax is 3% on net sales, not on profits, explained that his profit margin over sales was in fact just 3% last year, so it is in effect a 100% tax on profits, and complained that the GON and FSLN each claimed the other was responsible for the situation. Though both the PLC and Camino Cristiano,s Reverend Osorno had assured him there were not enough votes in the Assembly to pass the law, Fuentes was unhappy that the GON had allowed the FSLN to take the issue as far as it had gone. Comment: The final agreement containing the profit tax proposal was signed by CC,s Delia Arellano as well as Alternativa Cristiana deputy Orlando Tardencilla (the Assembly,s Herty supporter, and at one time a nominal member of the pro-Bolanos Blue and White bloc). A bill proposing the tax was submitted to the Assembly February 15, signed by Tardencilla, Arellano, FSLN deputy Edwin Castro, and APRE,s Miguel Lopez Baldizon. The bill will be sent to the Economic Committee, whose chairman, PLC deputy Wilfredo Navarro, has already expressed opposition. The ALN-PC has also come out publicly against the idea. End comment. ¶3. (C) Fuentes shared figures on his balance sheet provided to the tax authorities for the last three years, noting that this normally confidential information was about to become public. His profit margin was 5% in 2003 ($9 million),1% in 2004 ($2.9 million),and 3% in 2005 ($11.1 million); he expected the margin to remain at approximately 3% for 2006. He stressed that Esso was already offering bus owners a 2 cordoba discount on gasoline and a 1 cordoba discount on diesel at the pumps, money which comes out of company pockets. He also questioned the 20 million cordobas/month which the transport cartel claims to require to maintain bus fares at their current 2.50 cordobas, since on the basis of their daily fuel consumption, the subsidy required should be on the order of 8-9 million cordobas/month. Comment: this tracks with other reports that the transport cooperatives overstate the number of units actually on the roads, and feeds general suspicion that the bus owners are funneling the money into FSLN coffers or their own pockets. ¶4. (C) Fuentes also shared a suspicion that perhaps the FSLN, which allowed Esso to operate the refinery during the 1980s, now wants to force the parent corporation to pull out of Nicaragua in order to free up the refinery for the Venezuelans. He pointed out that during the strike, many ordinary Nicaraguans were forced to pay extra for transport to work, and had in fact laid out more than the difference between the current fare and the &market8 rate would amount to over a four-month period. ¶5. (C) After the meeting, DCM contacted Presidential Secretary Leonardo Somarriba to reiterate our unhappiness with the proposed anti-business measure. Somarriba attempted to justify the GON,s action by pointing out that the GON had not endorsed the confiscatory tax; indeed, they had insisted on rewriting the February 13 agreement from its initial draft so that it was clear that the tax was an initiative of the legislators and the GON had only committed to assist in importing new buses and signed on to a call for an audit of what had been done with previous subsidies. He added that he expected the bill to die in the Assembly, in which case the GON would have to deal with the problem at a later date. ¶7. (C) Econ Counselor consulted local IMF resrep Humberto (&Tito8) Arbulu on the Fund,s views of the GON,s options. Arbulu said that of course the law was a terrible idea, but that the Fund would not have independent grounds to object if the GON insisted this was the only way to keep within the public expenditure ceiling agreed to in the IMF program. He said that the IMF program did not incorporate any specific GON commitments to refrain from further transportation subsidies (there is a commitment to allow electricity rates to rise and avoid further subsidies),though the GON had made its own public commitment during the last transportation crisis of September 2005 that there would be no more money given to transport groups. The IMF program does contain a commitment to amend the Energy Stability law in order to eliminate market distortions (including calls to regulate the fuel market); however, the deadline for this action is the August review, and the GON could argue that the &temporary8 confiscatory tax on oil company profits, while clearly a step backward, would expire before the deadline. ¶8. (C) Arbulu said that, within the limits of agreed overall spending, and commitments to maintain the level of social spending, the GON would be free to rearrange its priorities to grant a further transport subsidy. However, acceding to such a request would open the floodgates to other requests, including demands to increase salaries for teachers and health workers (in the case of salaries, however, there is a commitment not to increase the total wage bill, so any increase for teachers or health workers should be compensated by cuts in other salary accounts). The IMF would object to subsidizing the transport companies by waiving fuel taxes (ISC) for buses for four months (a suggestion of Fuentes),as this would create a breach in the GON,s revenue targets. ¶9. (C) Arbulu had no confidence in the arrival of the promised new buses; there has been talk of new units for years and none have appeared. He also said that he would not place too much confidence in the PLC,s declared hostility to the legislation: one phone call from Ortega to PLC leader Aleman and the PLC deputies could well execute a 180-degree turn on this issue. Arbulu appeared perturbed that the GON -- specifically Finance Minister Arana who should be the GON,s voice of reason on economic matters -- had not come out publicly against the tax, and that Arana had actually been quoted in the press to the effect that if the Assembly passed the bill, the GON would have to implement it. Such GON passivity implies that the executive has ceded economic policy to the Assembly. Arbulu said that, judging by recent experience, the way to stop the tax bill would be to take it to the National Dialogue (Comment: of course, the February 13 political deal was taken in the context of a session that very much resembled the Dialogue). ¶10. (C) Comment: We agree that the PLC's declared opposition to this offensive bill could prove a weak reed. We understand that the GON does not want to create more problems for itself, but we will continue to urge the executive to take a responsible stance in the face of blatant confiscatory legislation pushed by the FSLN, if only to force the aggressively partisan Managua mayor to assume the solution of the problems he himself created by blocking justifiable fare increases with a threat of violent protests from Sandinista-inspired student groups while simultaneously urging further subsidies for the anti-competitive FSLN-dominated transport collectives. TRIVELLI