Ivonne Young named as new Minister of Canal Affairs

Ivonne Young, currently Minister of the Presidency, has been chosen to replace Ricardo Martinelli as Minister of Canal Affairs and chairwoman of the Panama Canal Authority board of directors. Martinelli quit to run as a third party presidential candidate in the 2004 elections. Young's noteworthy achievements as Minister of the Presidency include many trips abroad, many denials in relation to the HP-1430 helicopter insurance fraud scandal, an aide who had an inadequately explained large sum of cash stolen from her home freezer and a curious role as alleged victim in what the Moscoso administration calls a "destabilization plot" in which anti-corruption activists allegedly committed "ideological falsity" by spreading an apparently forged list of people whose phones were to be tapped. Young's qualification to be the Minister of Canal Affairs is that her brother is married to Mireya Moscoso's sister.

In recent days Panama has seen things that we haven't since 1999 --- US Army convoys moving along our roads. The US Army Reserve and various National Guard units are here for "Nuevo Horizontes," a program that lets the American military engineering units practice under tropical conditions. Some 400 troops will spend the dry season building roads, bridges, schools and health clinics in the impoverished Ngobe-Bugle Comarca, and their cranes, bulldozers, road graders, trucks and other heavy equipment have been seen moving between the port of Cristobal and Chiriqui.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), direct foreign investment in Panama went down in 2002, the fifth straight year of declining international investment here. Last year there was $350 million in such investment, as compared to $513 million in 2001. The decline is part of a worldwide trend, but according to CEPAL it's also because the Panamanian government is perceived as corrupt and lacking a coherent economic policy.

The Legislative Assembly has approved a free trade pact with El Salvador, which will go into effect in June. About 80 percent of all products traded between Panama and El Salvador will be duty-free, and imports and exports of meats and produce between the two countries will be regulated by a system of quotas rather than by tariffs. It is Panama's first free trade pact with any country, but it's likely that free trade with Taiwan will happen this year. The Moscoso administration, which supports the Free Trade Area of the Americas and wants Panama to be its headquarters, has oscillated between strategies of bilateral talks with the United States and joining the Central American countries to deal with the US as a bloc. The labor movement, the left and a number of business and professional sectors are opposed to free trade in the NAFTA style, and many of the Panamanians who favor trade liberalization believe that we should align ourselves with South American countries rather than the Central American banana republics for trade negotiations with the US.

The Federation of Chambers of Commerce of Panama (FEDECAMERA) has sued the government to stop a controversial road through the Volcan Baru National Park. In addition to the business community, environmentalists and many area residents oppose the projected 14-kilometer road, mainly because they fear that it will destroy the park, which is one of the area's principal tourism assets. Lawyers for FEDECAMARA say that the cabinet resolution approving the project violates several environmental laws.

Faced with a Chiquita Brands offer that it can't accept, the SITRACHILCO banana workers' union is proposing that instead of being spun off as "independent" non-union "cooperatives" whose only buyers would be Chiquita, the Puerto Armuelles Fruit Company's (PAFCO's) plantation leases should be revoked by the Panamanian government and a new deal with a German company struck. Chiquita wants Panama to pay workers at its PAFCO subsidiary the severance pay they will be owed, and to pay price supports to tide the "independent co-ops" it proposes over until banana prices rebound and they decide to buy fruit from the devolved farms. The government has no money budgeted for this. Chiquita objects to any suggestion that its leases be revoked and given to a competitor. In any case, there has been no firm commitment from the Germans to date.

A delegation from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) recently visited the Darien, where it is financing road improvement, rural electrification and small business development projects. Earlier in the Moscoso administration, the bank suspended funding for the paving of the Pan-American Highway between the Bayano Bridge and Yaviza because the government rigged the bidding process to give the contract to a supporter's company. Meanwhile, the IADB is withholding funding for Colon's CEMIS airport and multi-modal container handling project pending the results of investigations and prosecutions of alleged bribery in the Legislative Assembly's approval of the development. However, Attorney General Sossa won't proceed with the investigation while the legislature is in session, and President Moscoso has called a series of special legislative sessions in order to extend the deputies' immunity and block the investigation. Sossa has filed bribery charges against former CEMIS executive Stephen Jones, promoter Martin Rodin and legislator Carlos Afú, whose allegations prompted the investigation. Those charges are now before the Supreme Court, which will decide whether the case may proceed. Afú, a renegade PRD deputy, has become an important part of the coalition that gives President Moscoso control over the assembly, so the Arnulfista-dominated Supreme Court may decide to stall for partisan reasons. That frustrates a lot of Colon residents, who are hoping that the CEMIS project will proceed and create needed jobs in the economically depressed province.

The new officers of Panama's American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) have taken office. The new president is attorney Ivette E. Martínez, who earned law degrees at the University of Panama and Fordham and works at the firm of Sucre, Arias & Reyes. Taking a place on the new AMCHAM board of directors is US Ambassador Linda Watt.

Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro has met with directors of the Metropolitan Nature Park, which is suffering through some serious financial difficulties, and pledged that the $50,000 municipal subsidy to the autonomous park will be paid this year. Due to budget problems, the city did not pay the park in 2001 or 2002, although Navarro said that one-quarter of the 2002 subsidy will be belatedly paid shortly. The rest of the city's arrears to the park will not be paid because the municipal treasury lacks the means to pay. The park has also been hurt by tardy payments or non-payments of money owed it by the Mexican-based PYCSA construction consortium for the destruction of part of the park when the Corredor Norte was built. The park's executive director, Félix Wing Solís, has begun an public fundraising drive to try to make up some of the shortfall.

Foster Weeden, a member of the extended Weeden clan that has many members on the Moscoso administration's payroll, has resigned as head of Customs for Chiriqui and Bocas del Toro provinces. On his way out Weeden told El Panama America that Customs procedures are deficient and that the main crossing point between Costa Rica and Panama at Paso Canoa is out of control.

The Global Fund, a charity founded mostly on private donations that's largely run by the United Nations, has donated $570,000 for a campaign against tuberculosis in Panama's indigenous communities. Yuri Bacorizo, an Embera who works with the Health Ministry, Dr. Elizabeth Fong of the United Nations Development Program and the Global Fund's Dr. Arletty Cecilia Pinel signed the accord for a three-year community-based effort to detect and treat TB, which has increased in Panama's poorest areas in recent years. There has been a worldwide increase in tuberculosis due in large part to the AIDS epidemic and the War on Drugs. AIDS patients with compromised immune systems and latent TB infections are prone to develop active and contagious tuberculosis, while overcrowded prisons have proven to be very effective incubators to spread the disease. Crowded living quarters and poor sanitation are the classic situations that underlie most tuberculosis epidemics. When treated with medication, active TB infections can be arrested and made non-contagious. With proper screening, persons who are contagious can be identified and treated so that those around them are protected.

When the AUC death squad attacked the Darien communities of Pucuro and Paya, they not only assassinated four Kuna political leaders, but also burned down houses and stripped the villages of food and other valuables. Most residents fled with only the clothing they wore to Boca de Cupe, which was not equipped to handle an internal refugee crisis. Thus the Metropolitan Nature Park, whose maintenance workers include Paya native Ricardo Bastidas (a relative of two of the men murdered by the Colombian invaders), is collecting food for Paya and Pucuro. Take your donations of rice and canned foods to the Parque Metropolitano headquarters on Via Juan Pablo II.

Several leaders of SICOTRAC, the bus drivers' syndicate, have denounced the secretary general of their organization, Manuel Argüelles, and three officials with the Land Transport and Transit Authority (ATTT) in a criminal complaint for selling bus route permits. One of those officials has been jailed for demanding and accepting $250 for a temporary permit that should be free. Argüelles is free on bail.

The National Maritime Authority reports that Panama's merchant fleet grew slightly in 2002, after shrinking the previous year. There are now 10,143 ships flying the Panamanian flag along the world's waterways, whereas the number at the end of 2001 was 10,094. Scandals involving the illegal sale of Panamanian seamen's certifications to unqualified person led many coast guards around the world to conduct extra inspections of Panamanian-flag vessels, which in turn led a number of shippers to drop the Panamanian flag of convenience. In 2001 the trend was sufficient to reduce the total number of ships registered in Panama.

The Legislative Assembly, called into special session by President Moscoso for the purpose of delaying a bribery investigation, has approved legislation to convert the Civil Aviation Directorate (DAC) into Civil Aeronautic Authority (AAC). Panama lost its Class 1 rating from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), largely because the Moscoso administration failed to maintain Tocumen Airport and allowed the airport's firefighting capacity to slip below international standards. During the present administration the DAC has been hit by repeated scandals, including the theft of hundreds of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel by private individuals with the right political connections, the directorate's role in the HP-1430 helicopter insurance fraud, the theft of a Boeing passenger jet that was in DAC custody during a bankruptcy proceeding, and a "spontaneous combustion" fire that burned up the directorate's records at its Albrook headquarters just in time to block criminal investigations. Mireya's legislative package establishes fines for certain offenses and strengthens a pilot's powers to deal with unruly passengers, but does not provide the funds to fix Tocumen or beef up its firefighting force, and does not address the pervasive corruption in Panamanian civil aviation. However, the special legislative session to consider the minor changes has extended the deputies' immunity from bribery charges.

The Supreme Court has held that is was improper for Comptroller General Alvin Weeden to block funds for two National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (SENACYT) projects. Weeden has been conducting a long-running feud with SENACYT with the prize being control of computer and software purchases and professional hiring decisions. However, the court ruled that the comptroller's decision to block SENACYT's use of Taiwanese and Inter-American Development Bank grants to create a metrology website. The court held that funds coming to Panama for specific contractual purposes can not be sequestered or diverted by the comptroller general.

The Mexican-based PYCSA construction consortium, which has long been in default of its contract to build and operate the Corredor Norte and a Colon-Panama toll road, has received financing from the National Bank of Panama for a $60 million extension of the Corredor Norte from Tinajitas to Tocumen, where it will link up to the Corredor Sur, which was built by another Mexican construction firm, ICA. PYCSA has been unable to build the Colon-Panama road, as it is contractually obliged to do, and has been late at every phase of its performance of the Corredor Norte contract.

On January 17 the cruise ship Coral Princess transited the canal, getting baptized by President Moscoso in the Gatun Locks en route. For the privilege of passage the ship paid a toll of $217,513.75, a new toll record for the Panama Canal.

The popular Panamanian rock group Los Rabanes are pirates, according to the Ministry of Education. The National Office of Author's Rights, part of the ministry, has upheld parking attendant Domingo Aurelio Guardia's claim that he is the author of the group's hit song "Bam Bam." Criminal and civil litigation over the alleged copyright piracy continues.

Chame became the latest municipality to change its mind about privatized garbage collection when on January 16 Mayor Euclides Mayorga announced that the contract with the troubled CREDESOL garbage contract has been rescinded. The contract provided that the company was to dispose of Chame's solid wastes at Panama City's Cerro Patacon landfill, but it seems that the garbage was dumped in an unknown "elsewhere." CREDESOL is in receivership for debts to Seguro Social and has been fired by several other communities.