While some consider that opening RECOPE monopoly will be a relief to public spending, investment and improvement of prices as well as service, the Fuel Business Chamber considers that it is a false promise .
As explained by its executive director, José Miguel Masís, even though the concept of free competition is attractive, in practice it is not real. He even considers that the draft law dismantles the current system.
It is a harmful model because it tends to disappear even to operators. The project contradicts itself because it opens the market, but ARESEP will have to set the price just as it does it today: it sets the prices by having the international market as reference, and it is based on the costs and reasonable profitability of the operators,
declared Masís.
In Masis’s opinion, opening the monopoly can be good, but it will destroy the distribution system because it harms wholesalers who are also operators.
The project says that RECOPE would be giving free services and therefore ARESEP would receive a fee, but it also points out that the government would sell RECOPE shares and that money would be used for services. At the project level, this doesn’t sound reasonable,
declared Masís.
Masís insisted that authorities should not be lying, people should know that prices do not go down and the quality of the asphalt does not improve. By removing the gas tax, Costa Rica has an inferior price compared to Central America and due to this, dealers of the region would come to collect the profit. Costa Rica only has a 4% profitability, but the standard price of international profits is 9%.
The businessman also said that it is false that at this time people have no right to choose where to buy the fuel because there are different service station brands.