Business & Economy Briefs

New management at La Prensa

At a March 22 shareholders' meeting, a slate of candidates backing former foreign minister Ricardo Alberto Arias won the contested directors' position. That will make Arias the company's new president, and will likely shift its political orientation from that of former publisher Roberto Eisenmann, who is one of President Moscoso's advisors, to that of the PRD and Christian Democrats who backed Arias. The takeover may result in the creation of a new newspaper by the faction that lost.

New racetrack?
When the Remón racetrack was privatized, one provision of the contract between the Panamanian government and Equus Entertainment provided for the possibility of a new racetrack. That possibility is now on the front burner, as it seems that the present racetrack, which brings in about $600,000 per year, would be worth some $200 million were it torn down and sold for residential development. No definite decision has been announced, but El Panama America has published sketches of a possible new facility.

Whistleblower gets her job back
Oris Flores, who was fired from her job with the transit authority last December after revealing the practice of issuing false certifications for imported stolen cars, has been re-hired by the new transit director, Dr. Pablo Quintero Luna. It turns out that her allegations were true, and now the man that fired her, former transit director Carlos Harris, is the one who's out of a job.

Former canal workers sue
The Asociacion de Empleados del Area Canalera, which represents a number of Panamanian former Panama Canal and US military base workers, has sued the US government in the US federal district court in Miami for discrimination against non-US employees and for failure to obey Panamanian labor laws during the US canal and bases administration that ended on December 31, 1999. The group is seeking some $1.2 billion in damages, but it must first surmount such US federal governments legal defenses as employee unions' acceptance of contracts and the provisions of the Panama Canal Treaties that conflict with the lawsuit's legal claims.

C&W, BellSouth object to TRICOM
TRICOM, a company from the Dominican Republic, is setting up towers and equipment in Panama for what Cable & Wireless and BellSouth claim is a cellular phone network, and neither of the established cell phone companies is happy about it. BellSouth and C&W each paid $72 million for their concessions to operate here, with the assurance that those would be the only two that would be granted. TRICOM's Panamanian subsidiary, Celular Communication, has a permit for radio communications, but C&W alleges that it's attempting to go beyond its rights and infringe on its concession.

Swindler ousted from seminar, Mireya goes too
Richard Busch was one of the speakers in $1,500-per-person offshore finance industry seminar billed as "The International Wealth Conference," until La Prensa's business editor Miren Gutiérrez pointed out that the US Commodities Futures Commission has ordered him to repay $10 million to bilked investors. Busch is also sought by US authorities in connection with a pyramid scheme called The Millennium Fund, which "guaranteed" investors a 15 percent return on their investments. Busch also published a magazine, The American Chiropractor, which employed Sun Publishing, the parent company of The Panama News, for production several years ago. After two issues and certain suspicions being raised, that relationship was discontinued. After Busch's notoriety was published in La Prensa, President Moscoso and First Vice-president Vallarino canceled their plans to speak at the conference.

14 fired in maritime certificates scandal
The National Maritime Authority has fired 14 employees for alleged involvement in the fraudulent sale of seamen's papers. Those who were sacked claim that they were scapegoats for corruption at higher levels, and critics note that the firings have not reached Panama's diplomatic offices in Manila, where the racket has been most flagrant. Maritime Authority administrator Jerry Salazar is purportedly continuing the investigation of a racket whose existence the authority denied for many months.

New ARI directors
Five new members of the Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI) board of directors have been ratified by the Legislative Assembly. Joining the board are former University of Panama rector Gustavo García de Paredes, Héctor Montemayor, Luis González, Pierre Leignadier and Roberto Domínguez.

Peru looking for Fujimori accounts in RP
Peruvian prosecutors have asked Panama to lift the veil of bank secrecy with respect to accounts in the names of or for the benefit of former President Alberto Fujimori and several of his relatives. Authorities in Lima believed that some $422 in kickbacks from military aircraft purchases made their way to Panama.

Panama banks lose business
The Banking Association of Panama says that in 2000 the amount of foreign money on deposit in Panamanian banks fell by some $1.026 billion, with deposits by private individuals rising slightly but inter-bank and other institutional deposits falling sharply. The association calls the declining business from foreign banks an ongoing long-term trend, but it appears that Panama's placement on Financial Action Task Force and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development blacklists has something to do with the trend as well.

RP coffee gets high marks
A three-day series of blind taste tests by the captains of the world coffee industry and their experts that took place in Boquete between March 15 and 17 ended with our top specialty coffee, arabica beans from the Lerida estate, getting a higher rating than Jamaica's prized Blue Mountain coffee. Over the past several years there have been various scandals in which lower-priced Panamanian coffees have been passed off as more expensive Hawaiian, Jamaican or African varieties. The test results may result in better prices for Panamanian growers.

PYCSA to get new access points
The government has signed a $1.2 million rider to its contract with the troubled Mexican PYCSA consortium, which holds the contract to build and operate the Corredor Norte and the incomplete Colon-Panama autopista. The deal will create new entry points for the Corredor Norte from Avenida Juan Pablo II and El Dorado.

Proposed consumer fraud law
MEDCOM will lose ad business from TV Offer if a consumer fraud law proposed by legislator Wigberto Quintero has his way. Those responsible for placing ads like the one for the cream that purportedly melts fat or the battery-run electrodes that create strong abdominal muscles would face jail terms of up to 400 days, but the media that accept such ads would not be criminally liable. It has long been the policy of The Panama News to reject ads for "miracle cures" and other products and services that are or appear to be fraudulent, but Panama's richest communications media company MEDCOM, which owns the RPC and Telemetro networks and the Cable Onda cable system, has long done a brisk business promoting worthless weight loss schemes and other medical frauds for the TV Offer racketeers.