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Debt service payments during Martín’s term will be at least $6.862 billion
La Prensa reports that, although a lot of things about the financial situation Mireya Moscoso left behind are as yet unknown, the size of the national debt pretty much is. It seems that over the coming five years Panama will have to pay $6.862 billion to service the present debt, about half of this amount representing interest payments. Even when he was avoiding specific stands during the election campaign, Martín Torrijos has steadfastly maintained that the Panamanian government will honor all of its financial obligations.
FENASEP supports job cuts
Usually a union takes a hard line against job cuts for its members. But early in her administration Mireya Moscoso sacked some 12,000 public employees, most of them members of the National Federation of Public Servants (FENASEP), and then went on to replace them with political activists from her coalition and members of favored families, and went beyond mere replacement to add a net total of some 50,000 people to the national payroll. Now Martín Torrijos, handed a government with severely depleted coffers, says he’s going to have to reduce public spending, some 80 percent of which goes toward salaries. The new president has gained the support of FENASEP secretary general Alfredo Berrocal in this. The union leader told El Panama America that under the circumstances the government just can’t afford to keep all those positions filled.
C&W fined $200,000 for blocking competitor
Cable & Wireless has been fined $200,000 by the Public Services Regulating Board (ERSP, or Ente Regulador) for blocking interconnections that would allow Claro.COM to offer telephone services to customers in Aguadulce and David. Theoretically C&W’s telephone monopoly ended at the start of 2003, but by various subterfuges --- most of all by making outrageous demands for interconnection fees from potential competitors --- it has been allowed to continue as a de facto monopoly for fixed-line phone services and many other telecommunications niches. The fine probably is a profitable investment, given the profits they made from the illegal monopoly.
Ente Regulador backs down, rolls back electricity hike
After first refusing to honor a Supreme Court judgment that struck down an illegal electricity rate increase that it allowed to take effect at the beginning of July, the Public Services Regulating Board (Ente Regulador) has backed down and rolled back the rates. How the customers will be compensated for the nearly two-month overcharge has yet to be determined.
Moratorium on bus and taxi permits
In one of his first acts as the new director of the Land Transport and Transit Authority (ATTT), Angelino Harris has ordered a moratorium on the issuance of new bus and taxi permits and warned that improperly issued permits may be revoked. In the last weeks of the Moscoso administration there was a marked increase in the sale of permits, which prompted many protests from bus and taxi drivers in several parts of Panama. The improper sale of bus and taxi permits is a very old racket in Panama, usually involving corruption among both public officials and transportation syndicate leaders.
Shortage of driver’s license forms
There may be a delay if you are applying for a driver’s license at the moment. One of the little surprises Mireya Moscoso left for the incoming administration was a nearly depleted supply of the forms to make the licenses. The new ATTT director Angelino Harris estimates that the authority will need at least $80,000 to pay for the forms and other necessary supplies and services to meet the demand for licenses through the end of this year, and the money is not in the budget.
Quijano heads Colon Free Zone
The most important economic institution in mostly black Colon for the first time has a black director. Nilda Quijano, who for 23 years worked for as an executive secretary for Motores Internacionales SA and then labor relations director for the Manzanillo International Terminal port, is the Free Zone’s new top administrator.
Benítez new number two man at ACP
As the old deputy administrator of the Panama Canal Authority, Ricaurte Vásquez, is now the Minister of Economy and Finance, the Panama Canal Authority has promoted Manuel Benítez, who was previously in charge of the canal’s ancillary drinking water, electric generation and air conditioning services, as the canal’s new number two administrator. Later this year President Torrijos will be selecting someone to replace Benítez’s boss, as canal administrator Alberto Alemán Zubieta’s term is set to expire.
Protest against dams in the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca
On September 2 several hundred protesters, mostly from the indigenous Ngobe-Bugle Comarca but also some non-indigenous farmers who live in adjacent areas, marched through Santiago to demand a halt to the planned development of hydroelectric dams in parts of the comarca within Veraguas province. People in the Ngobe-Bugle Comarca, which is Panama’s most impoverished region, depend on the rivers for fish, river shrimp and drinking water for humans and animals. Under national laws that the protesters want repealed, if a river in the comarca is dammed to produce electricity the local authorities receive none of the proceeds from the industry and people who are displaced theoretically stand to be paid market value for their inundated homes and lands --- in a place where there is hardly any market by which to calculate such compensation --- and there is no compensation paid for the lost public use of the water resources. Discontent about the Moscoso administration’s intentions to press ahead with projects regardless of community opinion played a significant factor in a PRD landslide within the comarca in last May’s elections.
Dunning calls from Panama?
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