The new chief executive of the National Bank of Panama (BNP), Juan Ricardo De Dianous, has filed a criminal complaint against his predecessor, Bolívar Pariente, and several former members of the bank’s board of directors for their alleged roles in the financing of the Prados del Este housing development. Also accused in the complaint are several management figures in Promotora Nacional de Vivienda SA (PRONAVI), the project’s builder and promoter.
PRONAVI, in turn, was owned and run by people with close family or political ties to Moscoso administration figures, and was financed by the state-owned BNP. The bank management used a labor dispute and its position as financier to put Mireyistas in better positions to control and benefit from the project. It provided just a bit more than $12 million for PRONAVI to buy the land and build upon it, despite the fact that the project was situated in a flood plain, and even though the developers ignored the National Environmental Authority’s (ANAM’s) permit requirements to raise the ground level by several feet and build a levee along the Cabra River to mitigate foreseeable problems.
On September 16 and 17 those problems came in the form of a flood that routed Prados del Este residents. It was actually the third flood in the housing project, but this time several people were drowned and the Mireyistas were no longer in power. It became the first major challenge for Housing Minister Balbina Herrera in her new office, and she met it by taking unprecedented actions. The government relocated the residents, transferring most of their mortgages to new properties, ordered Prados de Este demolished, and thus put the nation’s principal public financial institution in the position of eating a $12 million loss. Herrera began a review of other at-risk housing developments and hinted that other projects in other flood plains might also be demolished.
Accused by De Dianous are Pariente, former BNP board chairman José Antonio Pérez Salamero, ex-directors José F. Jelensky, Virgilio E. Sosa G., and Carlos Eduardo Carrizo Alba, former BNP credit committee members Galileo Ferrabone, Virgilio Castillo and Carmela Stanziola; and PRONAVI’s treasurer Pedro Solís Espino, secretary Graciela Gómez and spokesmen/shareholders Rafael Pérez Lanzielli and Abraham Crócamo Arévalo.
PRONAVI secretary Graciela Gómez is the sister of Pedro Lanza, who owns a one-quarter interest in the company, and one of her children is married to one of Bolívar Pariente’s children. When a strike occasioned by a Colombian building contractor’s attempted non-recognition of the SUNTRACS construction workers’ union delayed progress on the project, Pariente used the occasion to appoint Gómez as the BNP intervener in the project, thus giving his relatives the dominant position over rival PRONAVI investors.
The allegations made be De Dianous revolve around improperly granted loans, backed with insufficient collateral and in excess of the full cost of the project. In separate actions ANAM has fined PRONAVI $1 million for permit violations and the Panama City Municipal government has taken legal actions on alleged. building code violations. So far, however, nobody is being charged (and apparently nobody is being investigated) for inadequate inspections and improper approvals by various municipal and national government officials, nor are negligent or reckless homicide charges being brought on behalf of the people who drowned in the September flood. Separate private criminal and civil charges against various figures at PRONAVI and the BNP have also been filed by lawyers for former Prados del Este residents.
Thus anti-corruption prosecutor Cecilia López scheduled November 30 diligencias --- investigative interrogations prior to the filing of any formal charges --- of the BNP officials among those whom De Dianous accused, as well as of other unaccused former bank officials.
The problem was, Bolívar Pariente could not be located. His attorney, former Attorney General Rogelio Cruz, said that the former BNP director was in Miami on business. López issued an order for police to bring Pariente in for the questioning, which Cruz derided as “an absurd measure.” The lawyer also maintained that it would be improper to question Pariente before a complete audit of the BNP is finished.
The other BNP and PRONAVI figures called in for questioning appeared, and it seems that they denied all culpability, instead pointing the finger at construction subcontractor Inginieria de Vias and citing permits issued by various government agencies in their defense.
When Pariente failed to appear, López issued a warrant for his arrest. Cruz called it a “barbarity” and filed a habeas corpus action on Pariente’s behalf before the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, political gears began to turn. Many developers and financial institutions with interests in housing projects built in flood plains realized that some precedents and policies that might affect them were in the works. Within and outside of the PRD, people who don’t particularly like Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro began to question the non-prosecution of city officials who appear to have acted improperly with regard to Prados del Este.
Voicing the concerns of the former group, El Panama America editorially blasted the decision to demolish the project, arguing that it was wasteful, pointing to Holland’s dike system as the proper way to “dominate nature,” and taking the position that “We gain nothing by making the project a scapegoat.”
Voicing the concerns of the latter group, La Prensa editorially blasted the city’s Office of Public Works and questioned why its former director, Isaías Bonilla, has not been the target of legal actions for the inspections that were signed and the occupancy permits that were issued during his watch.
With legal and political levers being pulled in Pariente’s behalf and his whereabouts obscure, on December 2 López threatened to issue an INTERPOL warrant for the former BNP executive’s arrest. Several days later, however, as this story was uploaded, Pariente had not emerged from hiding.
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