Diario Financiero | San Antonio Outer Port: Permitting isn’t the problem.

Mr. Editor: The executive director of the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA), Valentina Durán, spoke in last Friday’s edition about the much-maligned “permitting process,” which these days seems to be the sum of all evils. It is true that the SEA requires reforms to improve efficiency in the processing of investment projects, but it is also true, as the agency’s director stated, that “notwithstanding the fact that it is very important to streamline because a strong State is an efficient State, we are in a state of law where it is necessary for institutions to function and for us to act swiftly.” Based on these entirely logical statements, it is incomprehensible that some insist on establishing the San Antonio Outer Port as a symbol of permitting, covering up its shortcomings under that cloak.

The problem with the delay is simple: a very poor project was submitted that is technically unviable. It’s no coincidence that the project manager himself twice requested to suspend the environmental process to conduct studies that would address thousands of technical observations because they were not adequately addressed in the Environmental Impact Study, which is now in its second Addendum, and it is EPSA that has delayed submitting the observations by more than a year.