travel

A few weeks for a patch that could have been done in a few days

a photo story by Eric Jackson

So why should it take more than two weeks to fix a leaking water main under a street in Perejil?

Well, it was leaking, like many of IDAAN's water mains. But the urgency has to do with an October 22 referendum. The government has created thousands of temporary make-work jobs ahead of the elections, hoping that those who find temporary work will be "yes" votes, in much the same way that it's hoped that those who receive envelopes with $35 from President Torrijos will do the same.

Don't get the wrong impression. This is not just a political subsidy for the poor. A bunch of the work has been done by CUSA, the large construction company owned by Panama Canal administrator Alberto Alemán Zubieta's family. Looked at in dollar terms, it's the rabiblanco families who are getting the lion's share of the pre-referendum spending spree.

Efficiency? Not required. In fact it accomplishes the government's main purpose to stretch these jobs out. Note that just half a block away, it has been taking other crews weeks to resurface Via España.

And why this particular water main leak instead of one of the many others? Hard to say, but its location right in front of the representante's office might have something to do with it.

So are the neighbors outraged about the extended street closure? Hardly. People who voted for PRD representante Ramon Ashby Chial and those who voted against him, and people who will take his advice and vote "yes" on October 22 and those who won't, tend to appreciate the respite from through traffic --- no Colegio Javier buses roaring down the street, no boom cars blasting away in the middle of the night, so loudly that they set off every car alarm they pass and fewer hazards and interruptions for boys playing soccer in the street are some of the side benefits of this public work.

Some of the neighbors, however, will walk up to the corner with Via España and lament the fact that all the road work hasn't eliminated this death trap. Why not? Basically sewer grates don't last long. Every now and then the petty thieves who steal them get caught, but it seems that the government has no interest whatsoever in catching the people who buy the stolen material and end up exporting it to Asian steel mills. Thus the latest trend is that as Panama's infrastructure gets stripped of its metal parts by maleantes large and small, the stolen items just go unreplaced. As in, urban infrastructure maintained to Third World specs.

Also in this section:
A visit to Chitre with Darrin DuFord
El Valle's mysterious petroglyphs
Street work in the capital