Minister of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT) Carlos Segnini visited Nosara on Saturday, June 6th, to find out the status of Route 160 and meet with people who live in the area. Segnini promised long-term solutions and complained that MOPT cannot act faster to provide maintenance to the route due to legal and bureaucratic obstacles.
According to Segnini, the pavement project remains buried under a tangled bureaucratic mess and they only talk about small advances and future meetings to go on giving it form and seeking resources for this work, which would cost about $60 million.
The minister’s visit was up in the air until the last minute. “Forgive me for arriving so late. We were studying the road along the way,” were his first words upon his arrival to the Nosara Multipurpose Hall facilities.
The meeting began at 4 p.m. and lasted an hour. About 20 people came to the appointment, including members of the Nosara Integral Development Association (ADIN) and representatives of the communities of Esperanza and Garza.
The caravan from MOPT and CONAVI went to see the material offered by ADIN for use in road repair. It is about 70,000 cubic meters of gravel that was extracted from the Nosara river by the company that is building the dike and was deposited on land belonging to ADIN.
MOPT assured that they will be transferring machinery from San Jose in 10 days to improve the conditions of the Samara-Nosara section.
For now, MOPT and CONAVI’s priority is to improve the state of the road with their own resources since the companies that offered to give maintenance to the roadway did not meet all of the requirements.
Resident Accuses Minister of Visiting the Area to “Calm Spirits”
Antonio Mendez, an area resident, businessman and former municipal council member, complained about the quiet way in which these visits are made. Mendez thinks the minister came to ensure that the people of Nosara are quiet and don’t go out to protest on the 25th of July during the Annexation celebration in Nicoya, which the president of the Republic attends.
“They are just trying to calm spirits down and prepare the ground for the visit of President [Guillermo] Solis in July,” Mendez commented.
However, the minister assured those present that his visit has “nothing to do with the proximity to the 25th of July” and that the reason why he visiteded Nosara now and not before is because they do not have enough machinery to repair the route.
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