Nicaragua Canal Project Moving Forward, says spokesperson
HAVANA TIMES — The spokesman of the Commission for the Grand Canal of Nicaragua, Telemaco Talavera, assured the governing party website today that pre-construction work on the megaproject continues forward “with all the saftey and rigor that the case merits.”
Talavera said the goal now is to start the major work by the end of this year.
He said the project, under the HKND consortium headed by Chinese businessman Wang Jing, is in the final phase of its archaeological study in the area of Brito on the Pacific Coast, where one of the two deep-water ports is scheduled to be built.
Talavera added that the geological, cartographic, topographic, alignment and high precision photographic studies for the canal are also in their final stages.
“We are working with all the required safely and rigor, based on the issues raised, to make possible the beginning of the major works by the end of the year.”
And another thing, we are in the windy season now. High winds shut down much of the ferry traffic on the lake. How will these ships pass through a shallow lake (covered with faults lines) in high winds? they cannot.
And what about power? We have power outages weekly, sometimes daily. Wang Jing would need to build one to two more power stations, which would take years to build, before he could construct the canal. What about the roads through swampland? At least a decade to bring a road to the port. And locating an airport in Rivas/San Jorge is a joke. The winds from the lake would make it too dangerous for an airport. Wang Jing has this fake pipe dream and hasn’t even addressed the basics. It would take almost a decade just to get the infrastructure in place and two years ago he said the project would take 5 years from start to finish. What happens if there is a change of government? What happens if the government decides that Ortega had no legal authority to make the deal? No investor would put a cordoba into the canal given these questions – and so far, no one has.
Wang Jing allegedly lost 85 percent of his fortune in September. He has not made any investments in the country. The environmental report is about as real as the Iraqi WMD dossier. Wang Jing was in the news claiming to have invested $100 million of his own money in the project (although he originally said he was donating company stock to help fund the project), and then a week later he claimed to have invested $1 billion Nicaragua already. He hasn’t There is no way to hide that kind of investment.
People know he is a fraud. People know the canal will never be built. The government should drop it now before the politics escalate. They can still bow out and save face.
The majority of the people do not want the canal. Three years ago, the majority of the people didn’t want the canal, either. Perhaps the pollsters should have talked to the population outside of Managua the first time.
What about the reports from the Atlantic Coast?
Wang Jing is a fraud. It took just a few minutes in Google to figure that out. In 2009, he was involved in a complex scandal involving the Chinese railroads, telecommunications, military and banking. He was the man who saw where all the money went. He had no oversight. Six months later, he is pushed on the scene as a billionaire anon one says a word. You don’t become a billionaire overnight.
He claims to have business in 22 countries, but none of those countries he lists has any record of investment. He isn’t even registered to do business in most of the countries he claims to have operations.
The Panama Canal generates $1-$2 billion in profit per yer. If the Nicaraguan canal took 100 percent of the business from Panama (it wouldn’t) and could keep the same operating costs (it can’t ), out would still take 50-100 years interest free to pay for the canal. Do you see any business or billionaire singing up to subsidize this? No.
Also telling is that Wang Jing (and the government) mentioned building a resort first. Since the canal would be a giant eyesore and a security zone, why would anyone build a resort? Hmmm. I wonder who wants a resort so that when Wang Jing leaves with his limp little tail between his legs, someone can say that the land is now government property and what a surprise – there is a resort on the property! How convenient!
This is a game. It is sad that not one journalist has figured this out. It’s sad that the local papers don’t call the government out on this.