Nicaraguan Certified Public Accountants’ Association Mourns 17 Members

The number of Public Accountants who have died flies in the face of the government’s statistics.

By Ivan Olivares (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – The publication last week of the names of 15 members of the Certified Public Accountants’ Association and 16 of their family members who have died in the past few weeks, “was a way of honoring them and giving vent to the Association’s consternation,” Mario Tellez, himself a certified public accountant, told Confidencial. Since that time, the number of deaths among members has risen to 17.

Despite the state of denial within the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, whose Ministry of Health recognizes a mere 55 deaths, the publication of the CCPN announcement surprised many for the transparency with which the accountant’s association handled a topic that many prefer to subject to discretion. 

Meanwhile, the independent monitoring group “Citizen’s Observatory” reports 1,398 deaths throughout the country associated with the COVID-19 epidemic.

A CPA who agreed to speak with Confidencial on condition of anonymity, explained that there were no objections in the Association to publishing the names of the deceased, because “the Association doesn’t know what they died from. It’s probable that it was from COVID-19, in the cases that had previous illnesses,” the source speculated.

The greater part of the deaths occurred among people over 55 years of age, although the source stated: “There’s a case I know of, involving a colleague of around 45 who recovered in Granada. It was a miracle, because he was gravely ill in the hospital.”  For his part, Mario Tellez cited the case of a young accountant, no more than 35, who also passed away recently.

“We’re very concerned about the situation in the country, which has been aggravated by the public health crisis,” Tellez admitted. “Before March 2020, you might receive one sad notice of the death of a bishop, but in these past three weeks, it’s been every few days. That’s why we made public the names of the deceased; it’s intended as one more way of honoring our colleagues,” he explained.

The anonymous source justified the unusual publication of these names, stating: “I understand that it was for the number [of deceased], which was evidently high.  Those 33 deaths occurred in just five weeks, so that people began to become alarmed on seeing that the Association’s official channels of communications were sending them so many individual notes of mourning,” On average, there was nearly one a day.

This person saw “very well-known colleagues die: university professors with 30 years of teaching, like Douglas Flores who taught classes in several universities. People who were known by everyone in the association. This has affected us emotionally and is causing a great deal of concern among our members,” the source concluded.