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Also in this section:
Maneuvering toward a US-RP free trade agreement
Claro.com sues C&W for monopolistic practices
A little protest that touched a raw nerve
Casco Viejo rehabilitation
Identity theft
Business & Economy Briefs

Business & Economy Briefs

CLICAC’s days are numbered

The Cabinet Council has decided to replace the Free Trade and Consumer Affairs Commission (CLICAC) with a Consumer Protection and Defense of Competition Authority, which the Torrijos administration claims will have greater powers to suppress monopolistic practices. The new entity will have a single director instead of a three-member board, will have tribunals able to hear consumer protection cases involving up to $2,500 instead of CLICAC’s $500 limit, and will be able to impose fines of up to $1 million instead of the prior $10,000 limit. Its jurisdiction will be expanded to adjudicate cases that had previously been in the province of the Public Services Regulating Board (Ente Regulador). The new authority will also be given a new, more inclusive definition of deceptive advertising to suppress. From its inception in the Pérez Balladares administration CLICAC was dominated by people who support monopolistic practices, and thus consumers with small claims were subjected to waiting periods of up to four years to be heard and then hearings before a hostile panel. The legislature has given President Torrijos the power to make changes to CLICAC and the Ente Regulador by decree.

COPA labor dispute goes to arbitration

The threat of a strike on Panama’s principal airline on the eve of Carnival has been averted by a Ministry of Labor Development (MITRADEL) decision to submit a pay dispute between the airline mechanics’ SITECMAP union and management to arbitration. If the arbiter’s award is not accepted there still could be a strike, but that wouldn’t happen for at least a couple of months, well after peak tourism season is over. The mechanics’ threat of a February 20 strike prompted a call by hotel owners and others in the tourism for MITRADEL action to avert a walkout, and after several days of fruitless negotiations between labor and management the ministry heeded that call.

Truck dispute on the Tico border

Costa Rican authorities have decided to impose a new tax, by way of an electronic customs seal that must be purchased, on trucks carrying goods from the Colon Free Zone into their country. That led to more than a week of traffic blockages by truckers’ syndicates on both sides of the border, which were continuing as these briefs were written. The Costa Ricans temporarily suspended the seal requirement for at least two months while they reconsider the policy, but this has not settled the argument.

Argentina sues Panama over dairy restrictions

For many years Panama has barred the entry of dairy products from Argentina, because that country’s cattle herds sometimes have problems with brucellosis or bovine tuberculosis. Now Argentina has filed a lawsuit before the World Trade Organization over the ban, alleging that the measure is an economic protectionist policy hiding behind an unscientific assertion of an agricultural sanitation rule. Last year Mexico sued Panama about the same policy and won its case before a WTO tribunal.

Electric companies’ dodge abolished       

As of February 14, the private electricity distribution companies have been required to have contracts for 100 percent of the power they buy for resale. In the past they would only contract for a part of the power at set rates, then buy the rest on a higher-priced spot market. That practice benefited the more expensive power generating companies but raised prices for consumers.

Biofuels conference coming

One potential way around high prices and dwindling supplies of fossil fuels --- though not avoiding greenhouse gas emissions problems --- is the use of fuels derived from plant materials, principally alcohol and diesel. These biofuels and their development will be the topic of discussion at a regional conference to be held at the Panama Marriott Hotel from March 21 through 23. For more information on the biofuels conference, contact Wendy Vincent at wendy@biofuelsconferences.com.

City of Knowledge water shutoff

The City of Knowledge Foundation, which occupies much of the former Fort Clayton, is some $130,000 in arrears on its water bill and on February 15 the IDAAN water and sewer utility shut off the tap. The City of Knowledge has attracted a number of educational and research facilities, but the high rents that it asks, an administration that’s essentially a dependency of the PRD political patronage machine that runs the University of Panama and a series of policy and publicity blunders have kept it from attaining the world-class reputation that was its original announced aim. “We feel surprised and offended” by the water shutoff, City of Knowledge executive director Jorge Arosemena told El Panama America. The water was turned back on later that day, after a payment plan for the more than two years of arrears was agreed upon.

Panamanian government efficiency panned

The Inter-American Development Bank protests that it’s not a statement of their official policy, but on the organization’s website it has published a study that rates this country’s bureaucracy as Latin America’s most inefficient by at least one measure. The report calls Panama’s government “dysfunctional,” scoring 3 on a 1 to 100 scale when it is considered whether or not the bureaucracy runs on principles of merit. Basically the Panamanian system is faulted for running on a political patronage system and for civil servants having virtually no influence over the policies they’re supposed to carry out.

ACP raises tug and linehandling fees

The inexorable process of making it more expensive --- and more profitable for Panama --- to pass through the Panama Canal is not only a matter of higher ship tolls. The canal administration is raising other fees as well, and has announced that on April 1 there will be a seven percent increase in rates for tug service and four percent for linehandling. These charges vary with the size of the vessel.

New ACP barge

On February 15 the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) christened the Baru, a 51 meter by 15 meter drill barge that was made at the canal’s industrial shipyard. The vessel has four drilling rigs, which will be used to perforate holes up to 30 meters deep into rock at the bottom of the canal. The holes are for explosives to be inserted for blasting, so that dredges can then remove the debris and thus deepen or widen the waterway. The Baru was designed by  by De Donge Shipbuilding but built by an entirely Panamanian 100-member crew, and the ACP says that the technology transfers that were part of the project are another facet of the canal’s gradual modernization.

Labor factions exchange insults in La Estrella

“CONATO is corrupt,” said the lead headline in the March 13 edition of
La Estrella. The gist of the accompanying article was an interview with Saúl Méndez, the number two leader of the militant SUNTRACS construction workers’ union, who complained that the CONATO labor federation is corrupt, principally composed of company unions that don’t fight for workers’ rights and led by people aligned with the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). SUNTRACS is affiliated with the rival leftist CONUSI labor federation. Four days later a similar headline and lead story appeared in La Estrella, screaming CONATO’s reply: ”CONATO says Saúl is a queer.” Rafael Chavarría, the spokesman for the officially recognized but mostly irrelevant labor federation, responded in that way to Méndez, and also cast epithets of a similar nature against an allegedly homosexual journalist at La Estrella. Small contingents of gay and lesbian protesters participated in last year’s SUNTRACS-led demonstrations against the government’s partial privatization of the Social Security Fund, which CONATO in the end supported. The labor-left FRENADESO coalition that spearheaded the protests has not openly embraced the anti-discrimination demands of the nation’s gay and lesbian rights movement, but neither are they known to use anti-homosexual epithets or bait people about their real or supposed sexual orientations.

La Chorrera land invaders routed

On February 10 police expelled 48 families who had set up shanties on land belonging to the Ministry of Public Works in the La Milagrosa area of La Chorrera. Ten people who resisted were arrested but later released without charge. The eviction was ordered by Mayor Luis Guerra, who warned that the city has no land to give away and won’t tolerate squatter invasions. Such land occupations have been a semi-illegal feature of Panamanian society for many years. The city of San Miguelito, for example, now has more than 350,000 residents and many titled properties, but was originally the scene of a series of land invasions that began at the intersection of the Trans-Isthmian Highway and the road to Tocumen Airport. For municipal authorities and public utilities, land invasions are an urban planning nightmare. However, they can be a lucrative business and are often incited by people who sell building materials to the squatters. The phenomenon is something that foreigners who buy land in Panama with the intention of later returning to build retirement homes need to take into account.