Peñas Blancas Border Post
Dirty And Slow
Peñas Blancas is the main border crossing
point between Costa Rica and Nicaragua and
one of the dirtiest and most disorganized
border point in the region, with the Costa
Rican side being worse than the northern
neighbours.
The current immigration building was built
during the Mario Echandi (1958-1962)
administration and in deplorable conditions.
Thousands of users daily have to put with
the filth, the poor sanitary conditions and
the long lines. On the Nicaraguan side the
only thing that changes is that the lines or
time to process is shorter.
A sign inside the building, in Spanish,
tells users that all the services are free
of charge. However, many take the
opportunity to use the services of a the "gavilanes",
for $10 or more will stand in line and take
care of the paperwork required to check in
and check out of the country.
This weekend and next are just an example of
the failure of the border system, as the
border is saturated with an estimated 45.000
Nicaraguans headed home for the holidays and
next week coming back.
The exodus began on Friday and will continue
well into Tuesday where it can take up to
three hours or more to move through one end
of the border to the other side.
Conditions at both sides of the border are
such that they lack sufficient sanitary
conditions, like toilets, sinks to wash
hands and the control of refuse. At the
Costa Rican side the air conditioning system
broke down in January and has yet to be
fixed.
The conditions are such that the Ministerio
de Salud, through its regional office of the
Área Rectora de La Cruz, has issued a
sanitary emergency.
In addition the Costa Rican side of the
border lacks sufficient personnel to process
the paperwork, both at immigration and
customs.
Mario Zamora, the current director of
Migración y Extranjería (immigration
service), says he recognizes the problems
and that they are ill equipped to handle the
30.000 or more people each month, let alone
the holidays.
This opens up the door to corruption, as
some people are willing and able to pay to
get things done faster.
For that, director Zamora, admitted that
there open investigations of allegations of
several employees having ties with the
gavilanes.
The director, who is soon leaving for a
vice-ministerial post in the president-elect
Chinchilla government, says that ¢45 million
colones have been earmarked for this year to
improve the situation at Peñas Blancas. |
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