TO COVER CORRUPTION, CORREA SEIZES MY ASSETS
Alvaro Noboa accused Rafael Correa of setting up a media show against Bananera Noboa. “Correa wants to distract the attention from the Duzac loan granted without guarantees by COFIEC; cover it with an smoke curtain and use me his scape goat”.
“He’s not going to intimidate me. People is against corruption, insecurity, lack of employment, bad economic situation; all caused by Correa, the tyrant”.
“Until now, the SRI hasn’t clarified why Bananera has to pay up to $ 98,0000,000; $ 45,000 plus fines for the year of 2005, when Dole and Chiquita, bigger companies than Bananera, which sell more, only have to pay $ 700,000 and $ 37,000, respectively”.
“I will denounce this abuse of power to Presidents of South America and to the Human Rights Organizations”.
Correa never had money, said Noboa, “he is resentful”. “Money is good if put in good use , because people are able to improve their life quality , get a proper education, healthcare, a house to live or a car. That’s the change I’m offering”.
“I have already worked and earned enough money for me, now I want to be elected President of my country, so the ecuadorians can earn money and stop being poor”
Journalist: Kleber Chica
Kléber Chica: Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, to everybody. How are you? We are here in Huancavilca 830 AM, taking the news large, and today is Monday, October 1. We cordially greet Attorney Álvaro Noboa Pontón, with whom we are going to talk about his proposals as a fifth-time candidate for President of the Republic . Elections will be on February 17 of next year, 2013.
Attorney Álvaro Noboa Pontón, greetings. How are you?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: I am very, very well, there’s very good news. On Friday we had verified all the signatures for the PRIAN and the result is that we have 261,000 approved signatures, which will make us the political party with the greatest number of approved signatures. So, together with Alianza País, we are the two political institutions with the most signatures in the country.
KLEBER CHICA: That means that you and your political party maintain the status, that is of being protagonists here in national politics. What is that due to, Counselor Álvaro Noboa?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: The main reason and the polls verify it, which put Correa at 36% and decreasing; Álvaro Noboa at 21% and increasing; Guillermo Lasso at 3%; Lucio Gutiérrez at 2%; and the left with Alberto Acosta at 2%. The main reason is that from ’98, the time when I ran for President, until today, there has continued to be poverty in Ecuador. There are still millions of people in the world, and in Ecuador, who unfortunately earn $2 a day, which is considered to be poverty level. Well, therefore, as it is my life’s mission to transform all those poor people into a rich middle class like that which exists in Chile, like that which exists in the United States, the people have responded all these years very positively. In ’98 I won the elections; in 2006 I won the first round against Correa, and the first response gave me fifty-some percent of the vote. It’s that Ecuadorians want to become middle class. They want cement houses, they want a car, they want to have well-paid employment, of $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 just like was is earned by the middle classes in other parts of the world, instead of $2 a day, and they want their neighborhoods to be safe.
KLEBER CHICA: You are listening to Attorney Álvaro Noboa Pontón here in the Big H of News, Huancavilca 830 AM. Attorney Álvaro Noboa, when you ran for the third time for President of the Republic, you stated clearly that there were “intellectualoides,” “extreme leftists….” throughout the electoral event. In the next race, do you believe that they are going to continue, or that they still exist?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: No, no, the principal enemy of the people, and the principal enemy of change in Ecuador is Economist Rafael Correa. He, this very Friday, together with the IRS took a series of cautionary measures against Exportadora Bananera Noboa, and created a political show that was, for me, nothing more than to cover the amount of corruption that can be seen in government, like with the COFIEC case. So, they want to take me as a scapegoat but I, what he doesn’t know, is that I am going to steal a victory march in my presidential political campaign. If he thinks that with this he’s going to intimidate me, he’s not going to do it. And if he thinks that with this, that with a smoke screen, the people are going to change, he’s not going to do it. Because Ecuador is clear about the high level of corruption that is occurring under this government. It’s clear about the lack of judicial security that there is, where they imprison judges when they decide against the measures taken by the government. It is clear that the economic situation in Ecuador is very bad, because although the people, technically, earn more, and there is money thanks to petroleum, the cost of living has shot up. There is as well, one of the biggest complaints of Ecuadorians is the lack of employment, and they experience it and feel it. We constantly have people taking their résumés and looking at all costs for work.
KLEBER CHICA: In regards to Bananera Noboa, on Friday, Mr. Juan Miguel Avilés arrived, the Regional Director of the IRS who came solely to submit a demand for payment for $98 million dollars with regard to taxes, but he came accompanied by a lot of public force.
ÁLVARO NOBOA: Indeed, with a lot of show, but, yes, there is an intention to cause damage, and for that reason it is the hands of my lawyers and we will continue with our legal plan of defense. We live in a state of rule by force, in a dictatorship, but there are still some honest judges, there are still people that respect the law, and we hope that pursue it not nationally, but rather to take it to the international courts in order to show how it is possible that they want to charge Bananera Noboa $49 million dollars with fines and interest it comes to $98 million, while they charged Dole $708,000 and Chiquita $35,000. That is to say, it’s laughable that of the 600,000 signatures presented by the PRIAN to the CNE only 202,000 have been approved. But that is this country, that is this dictatorship, this election…. which is full of faults. For that reason, I repeat, I am raising complaints to the Presidents of the all the Republics of America firstly, and I am also telling the whole world even Chavez has done this to Capriles. Or that is to say, Correa must be full of terror, full of hate, full of those vices that he has brought to our country, which could be a developed country, you are in a third world country.
KLEBER CHICA: Attorney Álvaro Noboa, the Director General of the IRS, Economist Carlos Marx Carrasco said in a press conference, that Bananera Noboa had paid, over 9 years, an average of$200,000 dollars a year, and that it had shortchanged its workers of $34 million dollars in the year 2005 in respect of its profits. What can you say in regards to that?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: Let’s leave that to the lawyers. Correa wants that you point that out in your radio program… talking about Bananera Noboa in the political campaign would be doing Correa’s pleasure.
KLEBER CHICA: Very well, now, Attorney Álvaro Noboa….
ÁLVARO NOBOA: Resolving the problems of the country – I have worked enough for myself, I have made a lot of money and now I want work towards the poor having money. Look, the modern world, in regards to economics, has gotten ahead by very clear means, which are: free enterprise, the free market, foreign investment, always and only when that investment is protected in countries like Ecuador, where it should be protected and not unprotected. In other countries, in Chile, in China, in South Korea, there is judicial protection. If you want to commit some barbarity against me, I can go before a judge and it is sure that I will see justice done. In Ecuador there is none, and so, what has been the result? Which are the most important companies in Ecuador? The same there were 40 years ago: the Cervecería Nacional, Industrial Molinera, Cemento Nacional, the big supermarkets. The same ones as 40 years ago!
When Ecuador could be having thousands of new businesses of billionaire businessmen who would come with pleasures, always and only if it’s to their advantage. What would those advantages be, and what would our advantages be? They want to reduce the tax on income, so let’s reduce it, because that way instead of on income, let’s say they pay 10% or 15%, the Treasury, if 1,000 companies were to come the Treasury would be much more, but much, more wealthy than it is right now.
I can’t get it into my head that Taiwan has a reserve like the monetary reserve 20 years ago in Ecuador, of 100 billion dollars. In Norway there is a multi-million dollar monetary reserve. Therefore it is important that investors come. What are we going to get? When those investors come, they, seeing that they are earning $2 day in Ecuador, in a state of misery, will begin to work in those companies and to be trained. That’s how a man with only a primary education is trained by the company. Let’s say that I give you a company that builds telephones, or a business that builds extinguishers, or an agricultural company, it’s the same businessman who, in order to generate greater profits in his business is going to dedicate himself to training his workers, those poor Ecuadorians and train them. That worker becomes the specialized worker that he needs. On becoming trained and required by him, he automatically starts to earn a basic salary; he could be earning $1,000 dollars. If that man, besides that, at night, which is the idea I have, goes to university, and in that university he goes and dedicates himself to studying, to specializing, whether it’s in banana production, or in computing, or whatever, what’s going to happen? He’s no longer going to be earning $1,000. Now he’s going to earn $2,000 and if that man keeps on training himself in that business, he’s going to form part of the middle class, and he’s going to have what I am offering all Ecuadorians: a cement constructed house, a car, a well-paid job, and safe neighborhoods that will be maintained, because my government will specialize in security. I hope I can convince former New York Mayor, Giuliani, who changed that city from a dangerous one to a safe one. This is going to be achieved by economic growth in Ecuador. It’s going to bring about an end to poverty and that is what I want. I believe in that kind of life. Economist Correa doesn’t believe in that. What does he believe? In the kind of life that Fidel Castro has. Because Fidel Castro is a communist, he believes therefore that money is not necessary and he’s never had money in his life and he has come to have huge feelings towards money. Money spent well is good. What is money spent well? Having money to heal your children, having money for a cement constructed house. Having money for a car. Having money to educate your children. Money well spent is something good. When you don’t have money, your children can die because they didn’t have a doctor or the pills for making them better. So we can say: you can’t eat like you should, you can’t get the preparation that is needed, and even studying becomes difficult.
So I believe that Ecuadorians, we want this change and for that reason in every vote, we get nearly half the country voting for our ideas. On the last important occasion, that of 2006, in the second vote, because I found myself in the second round against Economist Correa who had the full support of the MPD, the PRE, of Pachakutik, the freedom to vote of the Sociedad Patriótica, and of many other parties of the extreme left; this time those parties are not going to vote for him in the second round. The public functionary, the police, the bureaucrat, the military, are against him, they are afraid, concerned about losing their jobs; the courts are against him; the transport workers are against him; the Press seems utterly under attack, they are against him – they’ve already gone through the El Universo case, this very day, a journalist from Teleamazonas is a fugitive, I’m sorry, he’s not a fugitive, he’s been hounded out: worried, scared, because they have threatened him. Why? For having denounced an act of corruption committed by COFIEC. So, if you start adding up all those people, together with the frustration that those people who receive $2 a day feel, and who want to get out of that poverty, you have more than 65% against Correa.
KLEBER CHICA: Counselor Álvaro Noboa, have you ever thought, now that the National Electoral Council has approved the verification of the PRIAN signatures, have you thought, I repeat, in calling on the other political forces to create one bloc and to challenge President Correa in the event that he stands for re-election?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: I have looked for them, I have called them, I have spoken with Sociedad Patriótica, with Lucio Gutiérrez, but he, well, he’s taken the position that he believes that he can be President again, and I have told him that he has 3 points against him: he doesn’t have any money, because unfortunately in politics one needs to have money to carry out a campaign; he has already governed once and therefore a lot of people are looking for something different, something new, a great transformation in order to become a better worker of the middle class, and that is giving him in the polls, a very small vote. But he insists that he wants to be the presidential candidate. I have offered him to unite our forces and that I lead the presidential candidacy in light of the polls, and in light of what is noted, what is experienced and felt: this time it’s my turn. Not just that, last Saturday, less than one week ago, we invited other parties to hear my proposals in Assembly of the PRIAN and independents, and 12,000 people appeared. Only in ’98 were there more than 12,000 people. So, there is an awakening. There is also fear, but there is an awakening and all the time the people are beginning to resent Correa more. So that, that abuse, that is causing so much damage, and that is working very much against him.
KLEBER CHICA: Counselor Álvaro Noboa, have you called Mr. Guillermo Lasso, Colonel Lucio Gutérrez, Mr. Alberto Acosta or Mrs. Lourdes Tibán, with an offer to create one united front in the next elections in 2013?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: I spoke with Lourdes Tibán and I offered her the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, because in ’98 I won with a leftist Vice-President, with Alfredo Castillo, the Vice-President who was, well, virtually communist, he had been a communist. Today, obviously, he has new ideas, new concepts, etc., etc. He’s a modern man and he and I won the elections, so I thought, fine, Lourdes Tibán is a woman of the left, a woman who is loved, an intelligent woman, and I invited her, but she said that she was already a pre-candidate to be the first National Assembly Member for the left. But I’ve left the door open for her. I have left the door open for Lucio Gutíerrez. Hopefully Guillermo Lasso will consider his candidacy well, because unfortunately the banker represents the right. He calls himself a man of the right, I call myself a man of the center-left. Today, to be a banker, to be of the right, is not something, in my point of view, that’s going to attract a big audience and we insist that outside of Guayaquil, outside of some places in Quito, the rest of the country, they hardly know who he is, and I think that it’s not Guillermo’s moment. Perhaps further down the line.
KLEBER CHICA: Counselor Álvaro Noboa, how can the quality of life, the standard of living of Ecuadorians be raised. Would it be, perhaps, through State policies, tending to control the quality; would it be perhaps by bringing in foreign capital; would it be by lowering taxes, would it be by creating state policies to stimulate, to incentivize the real sector of the economy?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: In order to improve the standard of living and we would restructure the economy because we are a highly populated country, we have 14 million inhabitants and a territory where more than half aren’t even working. I think that we have to train Ecuadorians and we have to attract national and foreign investment. I am going to give you an example that we see in house all the time. In Industrial Molinera, I had an English miller. That Englishman earned between $5,000 and $10,000 dollars with bonuses, etc. etc., a month. He has as his assistant a man on a basic salary who was being promoted into the work of the Englishman. Today, the Englishman was replaced by that Ecuadorian with the basic salary and his salary is now $5,000 dollars, plus the bonus he gets at the end of the year. He transformed himself from a person on a basic, low salary, from a poor person to one of the middle classes. He has an apartment, he has a car, his children are well cared for. I happened to meet him at the airport, because I travel periodically, and he told me: “Counselor, I’m going to Canada to buy oats, I need to go for the mill to buy oats.” He’s a first-rate businessman. I have another example: Mr. Marcos Laines, he was responsible for the maintenance of an apartment which was owned by my organization. That Mr. Marcos Laines has been getting himself the training and has been becoming, little by little, an Assistant. He’s learning English now, at least with what he received when he began to work. He’s now learning English and they’ve also told him to learn computing, they’ve bought him a laptop so that he can develop himself in computers, so that he learns about the Internet, etc. etc. He already owns property that he didn’t earn before. Soon, well, he’ll be able to buy himself a car and so he becomes part of the middle classes. We have a lot of examples like that in the organization, within the Grupo Noboa, and that’s what responsible companies achieve and I hope to have it as a regulation for the thousand investors, investing companies that will come to Ecuador.
KLEBER CHICA: Counselor Álvaro Noboa, I have the results of a survey taken on September 8, here by Opinion Pública, which states that the economist Mr. Rafael Vincente Correa Delgado has 44%; Mr. Lasso 9%; Mr. Gutiérrez 5%; Mr. Álvaro Noboa 2%. What opinion do you think this type of survey deserves?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: That’s got to be the opinion of Santiago Nieto, who is my great friend, a very nice, intelligent man. Santiago Nieto put me in 6th place in 2006 and the day before the election he called me to say: “Álvaro, it’s me, Santiago.” At that moment I was heading to the political motorcade, at the end of the campaign. “Tell me, Santiago, quickly.” “I want to tell you that you’ve made a comeback from sixth place you’ve gone to first place in 15 day.” “Fine, thank you, Santiago.” So that’s how those pollsters function. They take surveys for certain people. We all now for whom he works, and well, they put what they want and if you would ask Correa for a survey, he will put himself at 80%, that is to say, each one– I’m the only one who can tell you; it’s that our surveys we have clearly told the public have been carried out. In 2006, when they put me in sixth, our pollsters said that we were going to win the elections, and we won the elections. In ’98, when they said that Mahuad was going to sweep ahead of me, we won the elections. So, for that reason, no, I’ve got no other option than to believe in our own, which is proven, and where no expense has been spared, not even one cent, because there are certain pollsters, who, when they are shameless – Santiago Nieto doesn’t belong to that category – are being paid because they go to the corner and bring false papers and carry out a survey where “they tell you what you want to hear, right.” But, in the area of marketing, and the survey that we use in the industrial area for products like Quaker, Maizabrosa Café, etc. and in the political area, we have a team of people who know the political methodology and who do this in all seriousness.
KLEBER CHICA: Counselor Álvaro Noboa, finally…
ÁLVARO NOBOA: How, how is it then that with 2% we have 900,000 signatures of which, well, they have returned 202,000 approved, that you and I know has been a means of the government to see how they can disqualify everybody, because I had to take…. I had to get 900,000 signatures, of which we took a bit over 600,000 to the Electoral Council so that they would approve 202,000. I believe that in the eyes of the Ecuadorians…Ah! I’ll tell you two more things so that you will see. In an interview like yours, Radio Sucre, at the end of the interview called on the public to say who they would vote for. Everyone said Álvaro Noboa. Everyone! So, then, I’ll also tell you that the 12,000 who went to the Assembly are also a demonstration, the number of people who have signed now for the PRIAN, is also a demonstration. And how am I going to believe the nonsense that the government states, or other interested parties?
KLEBER CHICA: Counselor Álvaro Noboa, our time is up. A concrete response to the following question. In the event that you become President of the Republic, will you maintain the monetary scheme of the dollar?
ÁLVARO NOBOA: Yes, I would maintain the dollar monetary scheme. Ecuador had the sucre, which had continuous devaluations. That caused terrible problems for the people and it kept being impoverished, impoverished, impoverished. Today the dollar, whatever happens, one knows that there won’t be a devaluation and more than 50% of the products around the world are made in dollars. Therefore, we are using a money that is typically used by producers around the world in order to commercialize their products , which allows us to have greater power of acquisition.
KLEBER CHICA: In the name of all the radio listeners, we thank Counselor Álvaro Noboa Pontón for this presentation, here at the microphones of Huancavilca 830 AM. A hug, Counselor Álvaro Noboa.
ÁLVARO NOBOA: A hug to you, and to all the radio listeners. May God bless you all and the fight goes on, that we may soon remove the tyrant from power! But more important than that, that we will soon see a rich, middle class Ecuador, where everyone has a car, a cement house, good training, a good profession, and security, security, security, which the people complain about so much. Best wishes!