Sylvie Durán Salvatierra officially took over as culture and youth minister on Tuesday, while the ministry's Film Center Director Max Valverde Soto was appointed vice minister.
Costa Rican entrepreneurs expect hiring to stagnate while the number of private-sector companies considering staff cuts has increased in recent months, two recent studies find.
Christian Democratic Alliance lawmaker Mario Redondo presented a report also stating that “officials from 13 ministries have taken 1,654 trips during the first year of the current administration.”
President Luis Guillermo Solís said Thursday at a public event that dismissals at the Culture Ministry “are among the possibilities” depending on the report Minister Elizabeth Fonseca Corrales presents next Monday.
Lawmakers from the ruling Citizen Action Party (PAC) and administration officials will have to step up their negotiating skills over the next year if they hope to pass their legislative agenda.
Minister Rosendo Pujol Mesalles said the legislators’ request was inappropriate. "Resigning at this time for me would be like playing the game of those who do not trust the system and who do not believe in the changes we are implementing," he said.
Sergio Alfaro leaves his post as executive president of the National Insurance Institute (INS) to take the job, replacing Melvin Jiménez Marín, who submitted his resignation on Thursday at president Solís’ request. Alfaro is a lawyer and former legislator for the ruling Citizen Action Party from 2007 to 2010.
President Solís' plan aims to unify all 30 of the government's current aid programs into a single welfare system called the “Unique System of Beneficiaries.”
