By Roberto Orozco B. | 2025-06-23

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica -- Ten months after Nicaragua's government staged a ceremonial inauguration of Punta Huete International Airport, construction has barely advanced.

The Chinese state firm CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd. (CAMCE), selected to carry out the project, has yet to deliver a single dollar of the pledged investment.

That finding comes from the latest budget execution report, covering the first quarter of 2025, published by the Ministry of Finance. The document, reviewed by Entorno, confirms that CAMCE has not activated any of the funds committed to the "Section A" of the airport, a $249.5 million phase that forms just part of the Ortega regime's $500 million vision, slated for completion by 2028.

The government has promoted the airport as a flagship of modernization: a 3,600-meter-long runway with 4F certification (indicating that the airport can handle large aircraft like the Airbus A380-800 or Boeing 747-8), capacity for 60,000 tons of cargo, 25,000 flights a year and 3.5 million passengers.

It stands 58km northeast of Managua.

In August, during a public event, Laureano Ortega Murillo, son of co-dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, and the regime's de facto envoy for Chinese investments, announced that CAMCE would lead the entire project. Since then, progress on the ground has all but stopped.

"Progress is extremely slow. There's machinery on site, but nothing close to the pace that was expected. The Chinese money hasn't arrived," a civil engineer working on the project, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, told Entorno.

Nicaragua pays; China holds back

While CAMCE delays, Nicaragua already has poured $104 million of public money into the airport as part of its required national counterpart funding, according to the 2024 budget liquidation report.

The contract, signed by legal adviser Sender Power Vallejos of the Ministry of Finance, stipulated that the government must advance 20% of the total cost to trigger the first tranche of Chinese funds. That step has been completed.

Yet CAMCE remains inactive. Entorno reached out to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the formal owner of the project, for comments. It did not respond. The Nicaraguan regime bars state institutions from giving information to independent media.

Punta Huete is not the only Chinese-backed initiative in limbo.

Over the past decade, Ortega has signed multiple agreements with Chinese companies across sectors like energy, infrastructure and agriculture. Few have materialized.

The most notorious example is the Grand Interoceanic Canal, a $50 billion mega-project granted to the now-defunct HKND Group, led by Chinese businessman Wang Jing. First announced in 2013, the canal was supposed to rival Panama's, but it never moved beyond the planning stage.

Meanwhile, Nicaragua's debt to China continues to climb. Official figures put it at over $900 million, with projections suggesting it could reach $1.2 billion if new loans come from firms such as Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery Group and China Iconic Technology Co., Ltd.

A civilian airport or a military asset?

As delays mount, critics have begun questioning the real purpose of Punta Huete.

In a report by the EFE news agency published on August 25, opposition figures like Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, son of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, argued the facility could serve dual purposes: civilian and military.

"The commercial viability is questionable. Nicaragua doesn't need an airport of this scale. The only plausible explanation is strategic use," said Chamorro.

History lends weight to that theory. The original airstrip at Punta Huete was built by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, intended to accommodate MiG-25 fighter jets. Civilian flights never occurred there on that infrastructure.

"CAMCE may be holding back funds because of the project's sensitive nature," speculated the engineer consulted by Entorno. "It's just a theory, but I can't think of any other reason it'd break the contract."

A runway with no takeoff

CAMCE's silence fits a pattern. The firm has faced corruption allegations in Nepal, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

In April, The New York Times reported that a Nepalese parliamentary committee had launched an investigation into irregularities in the construction of the Pokhara International Airport, another CAMCE-led project. Valued at $216 million, the airport now sees just one flight per week and suffers from severe technical and financial shortcomings.

In Venezuela, court records revealed that CAMCE and other Chinese firms paid $100 million in bribes to officials under the Hugo Chávez regime. In Bolivia, the company became embroiled in a scandal involving Gabriela Zapata, former romantic partner of ex-president Evo Morales, over allegations of influence peddling.

Despite CAMCE's inaction, Nicaragua's money is already spent. What Ortega once pitched as a gateway to regional integration remains little more than a runway and some machinery in a remote field northeast of Managua.

For now, Punta Huete stands as a monument to promises unfulfilled, and to a partnership with China that has produced more propaganda headlines than results.