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Remarks when disclosing the canal expansion
summary Six years have passed since its reversion and we Panamanians have cleared away the doubts about our capacity to administer our canal. Our canal workers have made it clear that the canal has never had better indices of efficiency, safety and transparency. Today I have received the Panama Canal Expansion Proposal prepared by the ACP and its board of directors, which sustains the viability of the construction of a third set of locks, and at the same time leave it in the hands of the Panamanian people for their full knowledge and analysis. Thus begins a broad process of information and disclosure of the proposal and the studies that sustain it. From the same moment of the signing of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty in 1903, we Panamanians began the historic battle of the 20th century to recover our national dignity, and for the canal and the Canal Zone to be integrated into the republic as a sovereign part of our territory. And finally in September of 1977, with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, an end was put to the Canal Zone, a calendar was set to dismantle the colonial enclave and for a transition period for the transfer of the canal. Not even the December 1989 invasion of Panama was able to detain the historic march of our people toward the recovery of their sovereignty. And on December 31, 1999, in compliance with what had been agreed between Panama and the United States, we recovered the canal and the right to put it in the service of national development, thus crowning our generational mountain climbing. Now the current generation is called upon to make the most important decision about the canal and its role in the 21st century. I want to guarantee to Panamanians that, starting today, all the information that sustains the Panama Canal Expansion Project will be public and will be available without any restriction. The ACP's Executive Summary will be published in the daily newspapers and delivered to every radio and television station; there will be at the disposal of the citizenry information centers, more than 120 studies and more than 55,000 pages of documents relating to the Panama Canal and its expansion. The executive branch will send the project to the National Assembly when Panamanians have come to know its scope and foundations. For this we ask the communications media to open space so that the citizenry can be duly informed and broadly express their points of view. The canal has functioned for 92 years as one of the most efficient engineering works that has been built. It has maintained its capacity to serve world maritime commerce in uninterrupted form every day of the year for almost a century. However, world commerce has experienced an extraordinary growth and as a consequence the cargo that transits through the canal has also increased and will keep increasing. The Panama route, even if it's efficient, isn't the only one and it faces competition. If we don't face the challenge of expanding it and improving its capacity for traffic in order to go on providing an efficient and competitive service, then other routes will inevitably replace ours. The dilemma with which we are presented after 100 years is that the canal will come, within four years, to its maximum capacity level, or we can invest now so that it can augment its capacity and Panama can multiply its earnings and these can be used to produce the welfare of its owners, who are all Panamanians. Meanwhile, the more we delay the decision and the greater the time we take to begin the work, the greater the risk we run as proprietors of a business whose income depends on its competitiveness and its efficiency. The canal is, to state it in graphic form, our oil. Just like unexploited oil lacks value, and to extract it requires investment in infrastructure, the canal has to expand its capacity to absorb the increasing cargo demand and thus, to create more wealth for Panamanians. And this is precisely the challenge and the responsibility we have. This is the decision we have to make for the country's future: the challenge to expand it. Starting today our future is defined and we could make Omar Torrijos's dream of the canal being of the greatest possible collective use a reality. The canal expansion project is nobody's in particular, but of the country and its 3,000,000 Panamanians. This project is not mine or my government's, it's not a project of any political party or of any economic group. Nor is it the ACP's. It's a national project. It must not be politicized; it's important that the country treat it as what it is: a matter of state. To carry out the expansion work, it will embrace the terms of two successive governments, in order that the new locks would be inaugurated in the year 2014, exactly 100 years after the present ones. By constitutional mandate it's up to the Cabinet Council to send it to the National Assembly, and for this the Canal Authority has set some basic premises for approval, which have been established in the proposal: The first is that the expansion has to be self-financing. It will be the canal's users, through a gradual increase in tolls, and not taxes on Panamanians, that will pay for the work. The second is that the financing that will be required must be acquired by the ACP and not by the government, so that it doesn't affect the capacity to devote resources to the attention of the basic needs of Panamanians. And the third is that there can't be new dams. There can't be displacements of farmers or new inundations that destroy the environment. I understand the fears. Those who live within the watershed limits consider the effect of Law 44 to be a permanent threat to their stability and their lands. Thus, without suspending the development programs that are being carried out there, I will send to the National Assembly a proposal to repeal Law 44. The ACP's technical team has been asked to go out and explain the proposal and to respond to the questions that with all legitimacy will arise. The debate has to be free and democratic so that there will be a true expression of Panamanian society's will. The ACP's figures are impressive. The sole fact that in six years it has supported the national treasury more than in the 85 years of American administration speaks for itself. Panamanians don't perceive in their real dimensions the benefits of the canal, in the Interior and including here in the metropolitan area. Thus at the beginning of this year a special infrastructure fund was created, which comes from the canal's contributions. In every corregimiento infrastructure works are going ahead do that all Panamanians can feel that the canal truly serves to better their quality of life. Now we have a more immediate challenge. Workers, private enterprise, and the government, in a coordinated way, will undertake a novel and inclusive training policy, not only to prepare the workers and technicians that the expansion will require but also to take advantage of the new job opportunities that are today being generated in our country. Now we are sovereign to make our own responsible decision. Today it's only the interest of Panamanians that must guide decisions about the canal. This is the first time that there are no external forces or other placed ahead of us. But coincidentally it happens that now is the precise time that our national interest entwines itself with the world at large. This fact can't pass unnoticed. The canal's users recognize the efficiency demonstrated by Panamanians and I am sure that we will continue to reciprocate this confidence. Our aspiration and our right is to exploit our geographic position to the maximum in order to convert ourselves into a prosperous society, with equity and full development. This is our project for the country. What we're going to decide in the referendum is not only what's going to happen with the canal but the opportunities that each one of us, the canal's owners and shareholders will gain a full understanding of the business and we will be able to put in march a shared vision of national development. Now is when we must cohere our power as a country with extraordinary possibilities. We will make, among everybody and with responsibility, the best decision about our future and we ask God to enlighten us in this process.
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