Chavimochic: solution is delayed and generates millionaire losses, after five years of stoppage

The stoppage of the works of the III Stage of the Chavimochic Special Project (PECH) in Freedom, whose Palo Redondo dam is 70% under construction, has been without a solution in sight for a long five years, which causes the State to have a loss due to non-export of products of 1,500 million dollars, and added to others concepts exceeds 2,000 million dollars annually.

This megaproject has been paralyzed since December 9, 2016 to date, and has nothing to do, on a specific basis, with findings of corruption by Odebrecht. The problem is that nobody wants to sit down to negotiate after clarifying in arbitration after they did not comply with part of the agreements signed in the contract.

It all dates back to 2016, when a controversy arose over the release of “interference,” where Odebrecht claimed that this release was up to Chavimochic; However, the Regional Government of La Libertad (GORE), in safeguarding the interests of the State, and not being expressly regulated in the concession contract, did not accept at its cost to release these “interferences”.

For its part, the grantor, which at that time was the Regional Government of La Libertad, requested the concessionaire, in accordance with the signed agreement, the financial closure, which was breached.

This led to a direct deal without reaching an agreement between the parties. Given this, this situation led to the controversy being processed at the arbitration level, the same that was initiated by Odebrecht in February 2017 and is currently in progress, and whose award was scheduled to be known in this month of December 2021, but a few days after the end of the year, the result is not known.

New grantor

On July 23, 2020, the agreement for the transfer of ownership and legal representation was signed between the Regional Government of La Libertad and the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (now Midagri), which assumes the management and administration of the contract of concession of Stage III of the PECH.

However, little or no progress was made; Regarding the unlocking of the works, several ministers of Agriculture have passed and the authorities of La Libertad have talked about this issue with four presidents in all this time.

“Officials of the National Government responsible for giving pass to the unlocking of Chavimochic to finish the construction of the Palo Redondo dam are afraid of signing documents approving the restart of the works, and that could lead to the paralysis of this part for three or five more years. of the project”Said the regional governor, Manuel Llempén Coronel.

Ask for endorsement

Llempén addressed a document to the Comptroller General of the Republic, Nelson Shack Yalta, and to the ministers of the MEF and Midagri, in which he made known his concern about the time that had elapsed – five years – without the third stage of the project being unlocked. In said letter, the signature of a document between the Regional Government of La Libertad and the concessionaire is proposed, with the accompaniment of the Comptroller’s Office, but it must be signed before the result of the award is issued, and for that, Agriculture must return ownership of this part of the project to the regional government.

“Our proposal, from the beginning of the management, was that the concessionaire be allowed to complete the Palo Redondo dam, which is 70% advanced, so that once the contract is finished, they leave the concession, to which They had given their approval, without this implying higher payments than those foreseen in the contract. If the ruling of the award comes out, the work will be paralyzed for three years or a little longer, and that could cause serious damage to the economic reactivation in La Libertad, in addition to large payments from the State for compensationSince there is only 129 million dollars left to complete the work, and if the award comes out, possibly much more will have to be paid, ”said the regional authority.