Our Cardama Drama

A Second Costly Frustration Bequeathed to Us by Mujica

OUR CARDAMA DRAMA
A Second Costly Frustration Bequeathed to Us by Mujica
By Dr. Nelson Jorge Mosco Castellano

Since the left came to power in Uruguay, we have had, among other things, a naval karma.
That is, we have been unable to actually build a nautical vessel that works and pay a reasonable sum for it within our means.
This became even more pronounced once government action fell into the hands of Mujica and his successors.
Paraphrasing the most famous one-handed man: “In a place in Uruguay, whose history I would rather not recall, not long ago there lived a president, one of those who like to enter a bank with a .45 in hand to feel important.”
This character harbored such animosity toward the State that, had he not devoted his vital energy to failed public initiatives, we Uruguayans would have eliminated poverty.
One of these actions —karma in Sanskrit— in which we Uruguayans became entangled and could not extricate ourselves was the case of the Ky Chororó (whose name alludes to the sound of water and birds).
It was one of the most wretched fiascos of public business management, and it will remain part of the worst history of how to squander money that citizens struggle to earn and that could not be used, precisely, to address poverty.
Thus, in May 2013, with great pomp, the launching of the pusher tug and two barges bearing that name took place at Dique Mauá, a name whose cacophony would forever recall, in River Plate slang, an act of unlawful appropriation: stealing.
The ceremony, headed by the most serene left-wing authorities of the time —President José Mujica and ANCAP president Raúl Sendic— revolved around one central idea (AN IDIOTIC IDEA because of its consequences): to undertake a national shipbuilding project to transport fuel along the Uruguay River, under an agreement between ANCAP, the Argentine company RN Consultores, which designed the ill-fated undertaking, and the National Navy’s Shipbuilding, Repairs and Armaments Service.
It was supposed to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in freight costs and become a major foundational milestone in the revival of Uruguay’s shipyards.
It would not turn out that way.
From those dreams, Uruguayans got costly nightmares.
The final cost comfortably exceeded 14 million dollars (15 million according to later audits and complaints), quadrupling what the project would have cost at market value if commissioned from a specialized shipyard.
The only thing that floated in the air amid the shared folly, the Mujica-Sendic karma, were problems:
The vessel suffered severe problems with the rudder design, constant breakdowns and deficient acoustic insulation that made the interior uninhabitable and inhumane for the crew.
The designer and the builder exchanged almost obscene insults and, just like the exploits of the ingenious “hidalgo,” it was a resounding failure: the vessel never sailed.
ANCAP was forced to incur parallel multimillion-dollar expenses: it had to hire tugboats from private operators to maintain supplies, pay costly emergency overland freight, and face legal claims from private companies affected by delays and the system’s inoperability.
The matter reached Parliament, becoming part of Senate investigative committees that examined ANCAP’s deplorable management and financial collapse during those years, which reached almost 1 billion that the General Treasury had to cover. More criminal complaints were filed before organized-crime courts over cost overruns, lack of controls and technical incompetence.
The Ky Chororó affair —which ironically means “row and row”— became etched into public memory as a monument to political voluntarism, a karma divorced from technical feasibility and economic reality.
Millions of state dollars evaporated under the banner of left-wing industrial nationalism, alongside hundreds of infamous adventures paid for, as always, by the least fortunate: the poor.
That karma, that frustrated nautical vocation, would return years later under a government of another political sign, but then we would fall back under an MPP government. Uruguayans have short memories and hard heads, so they returned to the charge with another left-wing presidential duo from Mujica’s sector.
With the intention of monitoring the enormous expanse of territorial sea, larger than the country’s land area, violated like a voluptuous maiden by illegal fishing, unlawful attacks against the health of the ocean, and drug trafficking, the Ministry of National Defense under the Republican Coalition spent a long time pursuing the construction of patrol boats.
Always short of money —the money that Mujica’s populist voluntarism made disappear— several tenders that were impossible to afford were attempted, until an agreement was finally reached to commission two patrol vessels from a Spanish shipyard for barely 100 million dollars.
But when Mujica’s movement returned to government, the karma was bound to revive its misadventures, entanglements and Quixotic situations.
The delay involving a secondary guarantee that CARDAMA had trouble obtaining, due to an international provision restricting such guarantees for armed vessels amid the international situation of wars, became the excuse for ridiculous and extremely costly actions initiated by the new presidential triumvirate.
Mujica’s successors in the Executive Branch believed they had found something criminally relevant and politically advantageous.
The shipyard ran into a barrier of AI —absent intelligence— as the matter was litigated right and left over something that could have been remedied, as their Economy Minister Oddone pragmatically tried, unsuccessfully, to convince them.
But the governing triumvirate of the MPP, former Tupamaros skilled at making an easy match difficult, turned into multiple lawsuits the case of two ships whose construction had been proceeding according to schedule and for which their own government had continued making payments.
Uruguayans once again suffered another disastrous karma, tripartite, six-handed and without a rational thinking head.

Chronicle of an Announced Blunder
Thus arose one of the most strident chapters, the “Cardama Case.” Worthy of a noir novel about public procurement; another refounding karma that we suffer whenever left-wing anarchism displays its intention to “improve and control” the management of the State it inherited.
An international entanglement of tragic economic proportions that prevents the proper construction of two ocean patrol vessels from continuing, combining intolerance, insolence, intransigence and a tough-guy attitude.
A Quixotic farce.
The person serving as legal adviser to a president unversed in the law came in, to use a football metaphor, studs up; persuasive, tireless, armed with intolerant conviction, ready for a personal, ideologically driven procedural maneuver after finding in a secondary guarantee attached to the construction operation an opening through which to develop his “genius” as a former prosecutor.
Like a Quixote armed with the contract, he declared: President! I’ve got it! The ships are down, our flank is open, and we have the loose thread to pull all the way to the prosecutor’s office! The secondary guarantee is bogus. It’s textbook fraud!
And because his “professional deformation” and talent never miss a chance, he advised the president: request for information, investigation, search and seizure, and criminal indictment.
There are grounds for criminal charges, President!
And off went the three exultant marketeers to a presidential press conference, denouncing the irregularity, announcing that the contract had been terminated, and two criminal actions: one for fraud against Mr. Cardama and another for fraudulent conduct with the accused left open-ended: the former Minister of Defense or the former President of the Republic himself.
Of course, in his haste, the adviser, wrapped in jubilation, forgot a few technical and legal details:
A bilateral and synallagmatic contract should not be terminated without first formally demanding that the alleged breach be remedied and granting a period in which to do so.
Only after that period had expired could a judicial action seeking termination be initiated, a power belonging exclusively to His Honor the judge, once an attempt had been made to prove willful breach.
In addition, there is the prior arbitration clause requiring an attempt at conciliation before any action seeking termination.
And last but not least, we have a reciprocal agreement with Spain requiring both countries to protect reciprocal investments, exhausting every avenue to preserve the contract through negotiation.
All of which places CARDAMA in an unbeatable position to charge us for OUR breach of contract, for leaving the constructed sections taking up space in its shipyard, and for the recklessness of Orsi, Sánchez and Díaz in initiating criminal proceedings that ruined Mr. Cardama’s reputation.

Public naval management
Ky Chororó and Cardama
State contracting and guarantees

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