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The Ministry of Economy and Finance, whose number one and two figures sit on the Cable & Wireless Panama board of directors, is proposing legislation that would lower taxes on some phone calls and raise them on others. The plan is to eliminate the present $1 per international call charge and replace it with a 12 percent tax. Thus for a brief $2 call abroad it would be a 14¢ tax, but for a call that nets the phone company $10 the government would get $1.20. Vice-Minister of Economy and Finance and C&W board member Domingo Latorraca told El Panama America that the new tax scheme would “consolidate the telecommunications market in Panama.” Into whose hands, he didn’t say.

Upon taking office in September of 1999, Mireya Moscoso began to fire every public employee that she could and many that she legally couldn’t. Estimates of the number of political firings vary between highs alleged by the FENASEP public employees’ union and much lower figures alleged by the Moscoso administration, but it seems that about 12,000 people lost their public sector jobs and were replaced by political activists of the governing coalition’s parties and relatives of the Moscoso inner circle. Some of the people who felt the Moscoso axe had more than 20 years on their jobs. The current administration issued a decree suspending the civil service law, and did not limit its political patronage and nepotism hiring to the replacement of those who were fired, but increased the number of people on the national government’s payroll by about 3,000. Now that Mireya has less than 10 to remain in office, Minister of the Presidency Mirna Pittí has announced that the civil service law will be “reactivated.” She said that there will be no favoritism in the administration’s choices of which public servants will get civil service job protections, but this claim is ridiculed by FENASEP and is in general taken seriously by very few Panamanians.

The current front-runner in the race to succeed President Moscoso, Martín Torrijos, alleges that Mireya is “planting mines” for the next government, which almost certainly will be headed by either Torrijos or Guillermo Endara, the latter whom the president purged from the Arnulfista Party. In statements to El Panama America, Torrijos pointed to proposed legislation to require a two-thirds vote in the assembly rather than the current simple majority to select the next national ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo), and to legislation that will allow Mireyista appointees to continue at the head of Tocumen Airport after the next administration takes office.

Speaking at the end of a seminar to train members of the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) in techniques to investigate governmental corruption, US Ambassador Linda E. Watt declared that corruption is a form of theft, whose victims are the people and international image of Panama. She added that good governance is an issue in trade talks between the US and this country, and that Panama needs to confront corruption not so much because the Americans demand that it do so, but because Panama’s hopes of attracting the investments our economy needs depend on the rule of law.

The Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI) has transferred three parcels of land in Coco Solo, amounting to36.6 hectares, to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The lots are earmarked for port expansion and will likely go to the Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT), a port run by Seattle-based Stevedoring Services of America. The land has a book value of 22.3 million, but may be transferred to MIT for nothing or only a nominal fee, as settlement for claims arising from a huge tax and rent reduction that the Moscoso administration gave to Panama Ports, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa. MIT’s contract provides that it shall get similar breaks to any granted to other commercial seaports in this country.

“Offshore asset protection guru” Marc Harris, who did business out of Panama for many years, has been convicted on 16 counts of money laundering and tax evasion by a Miami federal jury. If maximum sentences are imposed, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. However, it is likely that in the wake of the conviction the US government may try to negotiate a lower sentence in exchange for information that would lead to tax prosecutions of Harris’s clients. In 1988 Harris was the Florida campaign spokesman for the ill-fated Republican presidential campaign of Alexander Haig. The next year he relocated to Panama, ingratiating himself with many prominent members of this country’s political class and ultimately obtaining the protection of Attorney General José Antonio Sossa in the face of international requests for money laundering investigations and multiple allegations by clients who claimed that they had been defrauded. Harris’s downfall came largely as a result of bad publicity in the Offshore Alert investment magazine and La Prensa, the expulsions from Panama and arrests of several of the people who worked for him, and the Panamanian National Securities Commission (BNV) decision to deny his businesses licenses to conduct the sort of complex financial transactions that they had been doing. Harris then fled to Nicaragua, from whence he was expelled and delivered to US authorities earlier this year.

Land tenure has been a huge issue in and around Santa Clara. In the past the most notorious issue has been that attorney Jorge Fonseca, the purchaser of the residue of the company that developed Santa Clara beginning in the 1930s, has laid claim to the roads, access to the beach and a small park with a Catholic chapel. There are other land invasions happening in the area, especially against absentee or part-time American property owners. Now at La Pacora, a fishing village on the beach toward Farallon that was established about 60 years ago, a company called Fundacion Desarrollo Santa Clara claims the land, says that it wants to build a resort complex and is seeking to evict the residents. According to the law the residents have perfected their squatters’ rights and can’t be evicted --- if the law means anything when hotel developers seek to dispossess a fishing village.

About 1000 members of the indigenous Naso nation have invaded five hectares along the Teribe River in the Changuinola district’s El Silencio area. Earlier this year, the legislature approved the creation of a semi-autonomous Naso comarca, to be ruled over by the nation’s king, who is the only monarch in the Americas. The law goes into effect in January. Meanwhile, however, the invaders said that they needed a place to live that’s close enough to a public school for their children to educated, something that their former dwellings within the planned comarca didn’t offer. The land is claimed by former university administrator Romelia Koo, who has filed criminal complaints for the invasion and the cutting of vegetation on the property, but the invaders claim that it’s public land on which they have a right to settle.

The National Front for Social Security, a labor-led coalition of groups that called two marginally effective national strikes in the wake of the Moscoso administration’s decision to fire former Social Security Fund (CSS) director Juan Jované, says that the movement is not just about Jované and that its activities will continue. The front’s demands include no privatization of the CSS or its services, opposition to some of the business sector’s suggestions about changes to the retirement pension system, an end to alleged politically-motivated firings and harassment of CSS employees, and now opposition to a government proposed moratorium during which the more than 15,000 businesses owing arrears to the system can pay up and avoid interest and late payment fees. The front’s next protest will be a picket line in front of the Edificio Bolivar, the CSS administrative headquarters on the Transistmica, at 4 pm on November 27. The front is also drafting its own proposal for a law to reform the Social Security system, and will participate in the annual leftist marches that commemorate the 1989 US invasion (December 20) and the 1964 Day of the Martyrs (January 9).

AMOACSS, the union that represents Seguro Social’s doctors and dentists, has re-elected Dr. Guillermo Pérez Silva as its secretary general. However, this was done by throwing the opposing candidate, Dr. Aureliano Gómez, off of the ballot and leaving Pérez Silva unopposed. Gómez was tossed of the ballot because it was alleged that two members of his Rescate Gremial slate --- but not Gómez himself --- held posts with management duties and were thus ineligible to run. It is likely that the last word on this election will be said by a court.

The Panamanian Broadcasting Association, an industry group, has condemned the Public Services Regulating Board (Ente Regulador) decision to waive a bidding process and assign the 91.7 Mhz FM frequency to Estereo Bahia, SA, which is owned by Mireya Moscoso supporter Eduardo Fernández. Under the law, available broadcast frequencies are supposed to be awarded by competitive bidding.



Also in this section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Presidential candidates debate about Social Security Fund
At the former Paitilla Airport
Panama and the Free Trade Area of the Americas

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