Starting with a walkout by non-emergency specialists at five metro area hospitals on June 5, a doctors’ strike has spread through the nation’s public health system, which is run by the Social Security Fund and the Ministry of Health. The main issue is overtime pay, and the cash-strapped government is not in a good position to make serious concessions. As we uploaded this issue the walkout continued, as did negotiations aimed at a settlement. The strike has not directly affected emergency rooms, but it has paralyzed many services at the nation’s public health care facilities.

The Japan Export Trade Organization will be moving its regional offices to Panama in October. The facilities have been located in Costa Rica, but the Japanese have apparently decided that Panama is a better place from which to promote their exports.

On May 28 the Panama Maritime Authority approved a $30 million resort and marina project to be built along the Amador Causeway between Fort Amador and Flamenco Island. The project, designed by the Lopez Piñeiro Arquitectos architectural firm, will include a breakwall, floating docks with space for 200 boats and a landfill upon which a resort catering to cruise ships will be built. There have been several similar proposals approved for Amador, with some having come to fruition and some others having failed.

Bids for a concession to privatize the state-owned ATLAPA convention center were delayed from June 11 to July 2 when one of the companies interested in competing complained about the process. The government has been trying since 1996 to unload ATLAPA, which is run by the IPAT tourism bureau. The gist of the complaint behind this delay was that the recently announced decision to hold next year’s Miss Universe pageant at ATLAPA will necessarily change the terms of the deal.

The Legislative Assembly has approved the Moscoso administration’s proposal to allow the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to impose tariffs or other measures against countries that impose discriminatory fees or policies against Panamanian businesses. The most likely bones of contention would be in the agricultural products and shipping sectors, but the law is not aimed at any one country or situation in particular.

The Panama Canal Authority has authorized an increase in tolls that will go into effect on October 1. The details are still being worked out, but the plan is to introduce a new classification system for users rather than an across-the-board increase of a certain percentage. Yacht owners and non-containerized cargo shippers have expressed concern that the new fees will hit them harder, as the canal’s main business is container ships and there is concern that other canal users will be seen as an annoyance and treated accordingly.

MEDCOM, the company that runs the RPC and Telemetro networks and Panama City’s Cable Onda cable TV system, has the rights to World Cup coverage and convinced prosecutors to issue a warning to RCM Television, a small news station that operates on channel 21 in the metro area, that it would be a violation to use any images of the soccer tournament in its sports news reporting. The interpretation of the scope of MEDCOM’s rights is at odds with the conditions imposed in other countries where other networks have the World Cup rights, but MEDCOM is aligned with the PRD and Attorney General José Antonio Sossa’s former Christian Democrats are allied with the PRD. Prosecutors, on the other hand, staunchly refuse to enforce intellectual property laws against infringements by media controlled by the PRD and its allies. RCM is accusing prosecutors of exceeding their authority by issuing this unusual warning.

The National Environmental Authority, with help from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and the participation of the Ministry of Education and the Panama Canal Authority, has opened a six-hectare, $24 million "educational forest" in the Capira corregimiento of El Cacao. The outdoor educational facility is designed to teach students and the community about conservation measures for the Panama Canal watershed and about the value of biodiversity in our tropical forests.

The Legislative Assembly has approved a budget of $807,298,000 for the 2002-2003 fiscal year. It’s the canal’s highest annual operating budget to date. In the current year revenues and expenditures have been slightly lower than were anticipated in the budget.

Grupo Fotokina, which ran a chain of photographic equipment and electronics stores, has gone bankrupt. The company failed after 15 banks to which it owed some $50 million petitioned the courts to declare it bankrupt and the court granted the request. The company’s failure is the second-biggest bankruptcy in Panamanian history.

The Labor Ministry, which is headed by construction executive JJ Vallarino III, has declared last March’s internal elections of the SUNTRACS construction workers’ union null and void because one of those elected to the board of directors is a Colombian citizen. The union’s secretary general, Genaro López, denounced the ministry’s ruling as an improper interpretation of the law that requires union officers to be Panamanian citizens and as an illegal ursupation of the jurisdiction of the labor tribunals. The union has taken the ministry to court over the decree.

Coinciding with many international analysts who follow Panamanian government spending, La Prensa recently reported that the state payroll has increased more than five percent by dollar volume and by 10,162 employees during the Moscoso administration. In a furious reply by way of full-page ads in the daily newspapers, Economy and Finance Minister Norberto Delgado accused La Prensa of distorting the news, claiming that the government’s payroll has only added 9,041 more employees during this administration.

The end has come for one of Panama’s daily newspapers, El Universal. On June 11 receivers for the Social Security Fund kept employees out of the building while they were checking out some records, and that caused the company which leased the paper’s computer equipment to repossess it. The company then folded, with an accumulated debt of some $11 million. The Social Security Fund said that it had not intended to shut the paper down or seize the equipment it had been using.

In April the Public Utilities Regulating Entity had approved electric rate changes to go into effect on July 1 but declined to announce what the changes would be. Now the Union Fenosa electric company, which provides service to much of Panama, says that rates will be going down. The company cites progress on hydroelectric projects in Chiriqui, which increases the amount of power it has to sell at the same time that much of its capital outlay expenses have already been paid.

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