At the end of the Pérez Balladares administration, the Metropolitan Waste Directorate (DIMA) was devolved from the national government to the municipalities of Panama City, San Miguelito and Colon. Since then, a number of urban districts, including San Miguelito, Arraijan and, most recently Colon, have chosen to privatize their sanitation services. Panama City has resisted the trend.

Lo and behold, the capital is relatively clean, while the citizens of San Miguelito and Arraijan have serious complaints about sanitation and Colon is so gross that people are blocking the roads about it.

In the communities that privatized their garbage pickup some time ago, the politicians are complaining that the problem is irresponsible individuals don't pay their bills. The garbage pickup companies won't serve those who don't pay. Those who do pay may or may not get regular pickups, but in any case they have to smell their non-paying neighbors' refuse and must worry about an increased risk of dengue fever, hantavirus and other maladies carried by the insects and rodents that are attracted to the garbage piles on their streets.

The situation is on the one hand a tribute to Panama City's mayor and city council. Juan Carlos Navarro has done a good job of managing the mundane but important job of keeping the city clean at a time when the city is facing serious economic pressures. The capital's representantes, who have their differences with the mayor on other issues, have been a lot more responsible on the sanitation issue than their counterparts in other cities.

Meanwhile in San Miguelito, Arraijan and Colon, local elected officials have sacrificed public health and their constituents' quality of life upon the altar of the allegedly free market. I'm sure that the suited eminences at the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would approve. Privatization, neo-liberal economics and the much exalted "free market" are at work. You can smell the new religion a mile away.

This new religion has no high priests in Panama. Its pope resides in Washington, DC, from whence he has sacrificed California electricity consumers to the ENRON god.

Yes, it inevitably costs money to maintain sanitation services. However, it doesn't take a genius to see how the privatization of garbage pickup --- or drinking water supplies or sewer services --- puts an entire community at risk of epidemics.

Panama has freedom of religion, and our churches, temples, mosques and synagogues play influential roles in society. However, this country has never been inclined to follow religious extremists. Osama bin Laden or Reverend Sun Myung Moon may attract a few followers here, but nobody who is identified as a member of Al Qaeda or the Unification Church is likely to be elected to public office in Panama.

The same ought to apply to those fanatics who throw all common sense away and prostrate themselves before the false gods of the global market.

also in this section AI: the problem with security measures Democratizing the media
©2001 The Panama News