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President Moscoso has submitted a $5.97 billion national budget for fiscal year 2004, up from $5.27 billion in 2003. About one-fifth of the expenditures will be for service on the national debt, which the administration says won’t be increased by the election year spending increase.

In its September report on the credit worthiness of private businesses Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador, the US-based Fitch bond rating service warned that a combination of a weak economy, the effects of last year’s tax law changes, high public debt, an unresolved Social Security Fund crisis and election year public spending is making investment in Panama a riskier proposition. The report noted that Panama’s public bonds are now below investment grade and that long-term economic prospects are negative.

The Panama Canal Authority says that on July 3 it broke two canal records, setting new marks for the number of Panamax-sized vessels transiting in one day (24) and the greatest single-day tonnage of cargo passing through the waterway (934,488). The authority attributed it to its widening of Culebra Cut and adoption of more efficient procedures. Last year the canal broke revenue records, although the amount of merchandise passing through here was down because of a weak world economy. The records set in July may be an indicator that global commerce is picking up a bit, in which case the waterway ought to be a busier place.

The Supreme Court has halted work on a traffic ramp for the Colombian-owned Multicentro shopping center project. The ramp, which has been opposed by Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro and many residents of adjacent Punta Paitilla, was approved under permits issued by the National Maritime Authority and the National Environmental Authority. Although the legal argument between the city and Mireya Moscoso, who personally approved the project, centered on whether the ramp was on public property (thus requiring a hearing before an environmental impact statement could be accepted) or private property (for which a hearing isn’t required), the court found that since the parking ramp on a landfill jutting into Panama Bay at the mouth of the sewage-laden Matasnillo River has nothing to do with either navigation or fisheries, the National Maritime Authority had no jurisdiction to issue a permit for it. The practical issues involved are traffic flow along an already congested and dangerous street and the possibility that the landfill could prompt flooding of the upscale commercial and residential area along the Matasnillo’s banks.

Ancon’s corregidor, Eliécer Barsallo, has stopped work on a landfill upon which an Amador Causeway hotel project is to be built. The promoters of the Coastway Towers project, so it seems, started work without an environmental impact study or a permit from the National Maritime Authority. The promoters claim that Moscoso administration officials told them that these permits weren’t necessary.

Circuit Judge María Teresa García, acting on a complaint from the Free Trade and Consumer Affairs Commission (CLICAC), has fined Panama’s four flour companies, Harinas Panama SA, Harinas del Istmo SA, Gold Mills de Panama SA and Oro del Norte SA, for price fixing. In addition to $100,000 fines, the judge ordered the companies to stop consulting with one another about the price of flour and declared all agreements among the companies null and void. The companies and their industry group, the National Association of Wheat Millers of Panama, say they’ll appeal the decision.

The downsizing of the Panamanian banking industry continues, according to a report in La Prensa, with the elimination of 44 positions at Banistmo, the largest bank that’s based on Panamanian capital. In recent years Banistmo has acquired several other banks, both in Panama and in Central American countries, and some job losses were expected as part of the merger and acquisition process.

SINTCAWIPSA, the union that represents workers at the Cable & Wireless phone company, says that layoffs are looming for some 800 of its members. The company calls the charge “inexact” and “irresponsible,” but the union says that the company is gutting its technical services and plans to abandon many areas of service. The local subsidiary of the UK-based company has been fined $20,000 per day by the Public Services Regulating Board for its failure to maintain contractually required rural pay phones that are out of service, and plans to eliminate its cheapest basic residential phone services.

Yes, we know there has been a most irregular “bidding process” and the presidential beach house at Punta Mala is now in her brother’s name. But it’s still Mireya’s hangout, and certain types of crime in the vicinity don’t pay. For example, Costa Ricans illegally fishing in Panamanian waters off of Punta Mala. On October 3 Panama’s National Maritime Service arrested two Costa Rican fishing boats and their crews for fishing without a license in the tuna-rich fishing grounds near the Azuero Peninsula beach community.

He may be still going through the motions of appealing his dismissal as Social Security director, but meanwhile Dr. Juan Jované, a University of Panama economics professor who has been on leave these years while working at Seguro, has returned to his teaching post. One problem is that the university budget for this year doesn’t provide for his pay. However, according to university rector Gustavo García de Paredes Jované has agreed to work without pay for the time being.

Incoming University of Panama rector Gustavo García de Paredes took office on September 30 with warnings of budget cuts to come and harsh words for campus radicals. He said that budget cuts will be necessary, and singled out employees who get paid full time salaries but don’t put in the time or put out the labor to justify that expense. Quoting Cuban revolutionary José Martí to the effect that barricades of ideas are more effective than barricades of stone, the new rector panned leftist rhetoric and tactics as obsolete holdovers from an earlier generation and, of the masked youths who do battle with police around the university, said “the future of the country is not in the hands of these youngsters.”

According to her original plans, the second bridge over the Panama Canal would have been done before next May’s elections and would have thus become a centerpiece of the president’s campaign to leave an anointed successor in place. Alas, that’s not to be. The projected completion date is now in the middle of August of next year, two weeks before Mireya is scheduled to leave office. Even that later completion date is a difficult goal. The Cabinet Council has thus approved an addendum to the $103.997 million contract to speed up the payment schedule, because the one originally contemplated creates cash flow problems now that work is underway around the clock to give the lady a chance for her last big snip.

The Legislative Assembly has ratified President Moscoso’s nomination of Arnulfista activist and former Immigration director Antonio Domínguez to a spot on the board of directors of the Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI), which oversees the disposition of real estate that Panama acquired under the 1977 Carter-Torrijos Treaties. Domínguez is currently facing a series of criminal charges arising from an alleged usurpation of Fort Randolph for a grandiose tourism, residential and commercial project, when another group of investors already owned the concession to develop the former Atlantic side US military base. Domínguez was approved with the support of both Mireya Moscoso’s supporters and most PRD deputies, but the Partido Popular deputies voted against him and Teresita Yaniz de Arias called it “a disgrace” that the assembly would ratify the nomination of “a common criminal” to the ARI board. Domínguez also collects another public salary as a director of the National Bank of Panama.


Also in this section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Seguro Social after Jované
The Panama News breaks 30,000

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