After tiring of trying to call for silence, the officers of the Uruguay Senate proceeded to dislodge people from the public gallery where around 60 Montevideo council representatives had gathered to witness the debate on the public tender of the city’s old tourist flagship Hotel Casino Carrasco. At this point, as the evening fell on Montevideo, the debate was suspended because the name-calling attack on the Senators progressed from ‘traitors’ through ‘corrupt’ to sons of less than reputable mothers - the worse possible insult that can be vented in Latin countries.

Some three hours later, after the debate restarted, the Senate approved the law that enables a public international tender for the exploitation of gambling at the Hotel Casino Carrasco, some 18 kilometres from the Uruguay capital. The debate heated up following accusations from the opposition against the government and the Director of State Casinos, Juan Carlos Bengoa. Bengoa’s highly questionable tenure as chief of the Municipal Casinos in Montevideo, when the operations lost over US$16 million over 5 years, is being tried in the local Courts on accusations of fraud and embezzlement.

It is now up to the Uruguay government to act with transparency on the tender proposal, so that the leading gaming companies are able to bid for the impressive Carrasco property. In fact, all they have to do is to look across at Chile and copy their licensing model to promote the arrival of serious gaming investors to the country. Before this, however, President Tabare Vazquez must follow up on his anti-corruption stance and at least dismiss Bengoa from his national casino post, while rapping the knuckles of his protector and friend Daniel Astori, the Minister of Economy. (E-11.22.07)

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