An Open Letter to Emelisa Callejas, Consul General of Honduras in Atlanta

Dear Madam Consul,

I am writing to you today to express my anger and disappointment at the recent ill considered, unenlightened, and self-defeating actions of the Honduran Congress.  Their recent attempt to increase the Airport Exit Tax was appropriately vetoed by President Lobo.  Now, passage of the Bill in the Congress (Decree 252-2011) to add a “Security Tax “of $17 per passenger upon entering and again upon leaving Honduras is no more than an attempt to extort money from those who are trying to help the people of Honduras, businesses, and the few remaining tourists brave enough to come to Honduras.

In conversations with you personally at the Consulate in Atlanta, you assured me that the government of Honduras is actively supportive of the work done by the thousands of NGO groups going to Honduras yearly.  In reality, the actions of the Congress seem to be no more than to make us pay more for the privilege of doing the work that your government has neither the ability nor the apparent desire to do.

At $34 per person coming to work in Honduras for the people of Honduras, this amounts to a very large sum of money.  Think about this amount in smaller pieces:  $34 is about what I spend for 2000 children’s vitamins, or enough antibiotic to cure pneumonia in a half dozen children, or treat a sexually transmitted disease in ten adults, or treat a parasitic infection in about sixty people.   This money will now have to be paid as required by the Government and will NOT go to toward the work I do in Honduras.  This does not take into consideration all the NGO workers who may come to realize that they are being used by a seemingly ungrateful Honduran Congress and will stop coming to Honduras at all.

A Security Tax to come the country with the highest murder rate in the world is nothing short of a disincentive to business, tourism and the volunteer communities.  It is high time that the government of Honduras shows that it is indeed in support of the volunteer work being done there, and stops creating obstacles, which, in the end, only harm its citizens. 

I work with an NGO that will send fifteen medical mission teams to Honduras this year alone.  This new tax will decrease our net expenditures for Honduras by about $4000.  When all the NGOs are considered together, this is a very large sum of money that now will not go to the poor of Honduras.   I fear that the finite amount money available to NGOs will rapidly begin to shift to other Central American countries which are more cooperative and do not place such barriers to our generosity and good will.

Please contact President Lobo and ask him to also veto this harmful and ill advised legislation.

Thank you,