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Bush - Lula declaration makes biofuels an international political issue
Habeas data information lawsuits over Odebrecht highway contract
Bocas oil spill controversy doesn't go away

Ad cartel backs an embattled friend
Business & Economy Briefs

Business & Economy Briefs

Modified canal toll hike approved

During the referendum campaign the "yes" campaign's projection was that Panama Canal tolls would go up 3.5 percent per year every year for 20 years, with skeptics warning that this would drive many current customers to seek other routes. After having at first proposed a substantially higher set of toll increases in February and having thus set off a series of complaints from the world shipping industry, the ACP backed down to an average toll increase of about 10 percent per year over the next three years, and on April 25 the cabinet approved a decree mandating these new prices. However, the averages are a bit deceptive given that the canal makes most of its income off of container ships and this year's per-container toll increase will be 16.7 percent, followed by a 14.2 percent increase in 2008. The Suez Canal has lowered its tolls for certain ships on certain routes, hoping to attract freight traffic from Asia to Western Europe or the US East Coast that now goes through the Panama Canal, but with the current high prices of fuel the extra cost of a bit longer voyage is still in most cases more than the difference in tolls.

Police block food to parts of Darien

At least one infant, and by other reports three, have died of malnutrition in the indigenous parts of Darien province in recent weeks and that has been the subject of commentary and public debate, very little of it flattering to the Panamanian government. El Panama America reports that part of the hunger problem in the Darien is directly caused by the government: in order to prevent people from supplying Colombians who come across the border with food, the National Police are blocking food shipments from passing upriver from Boca del Cupe.

Torrijos on defensive over beach land grabs

President Torrijos has gone on radio and television and taken out full-page newspaper ads to deny responsibility in a growing series of scandals about the transfer of prime beach properties to his relatives and close political associates. The main point of contention at the moment, which was first reported upon in La Prensa, has to do with the purchase of 26 hectares of land on Punta Chame directly or indirectly by the president's uncle, Rodolfo "Charro" Espino, for eight-tenths of a cent per square meter. Nearly half of this land was covered by legally protected mangroves, which were illegally cut and then covered with sand taken from public beaches. All of this was done without an environmental permit, prompting complaints from neighbors, as the mangroves are important to the breeding of fish, crabs and mollusks upon which much of the community depends for its living. But it turned out that officials of the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) refused to process a report because the apparent offender was the president's uncle. Two low-level ANAM employees have lost their jobs over the controversy. Agriculture Minister Guillermo Salazar has sallied forth to defend his ministry's sale of the land to Espino and deny the notorious fact that it had been covered with mangroves. And what is the example that some media have used to show that less than a penny a square meter is a ridiculous price? See, the government sold another nearly adjacent piece of beach land to Government and Justice Minister Olga Gólcher, and she paid $2 per square meter. There are more revelations about beach land grabs by the politically connected in the works, and President Torrijos is trying to get ahead of the curve not only by going on PRD-aligned television stations to deny wrongdoing but also by proposing a reorganization of government land sales practices.

RP teams up with other countries on FTA lobbying

The US Congress is more or less simultaneously taking up free trade pacts with Colombia, Peru and Panama and the three countries are mounting an unprecedented international lobbying effort in cooperation with Mexico to get the treaties ratified. In addition to the countries' Washington lobbyists, heads of state and foreign ministers are visiting the US capitol in quick succession, making perfunctory calls at the White House and the State Department but scheduling most of their time to meet with members of Congress. The focus is on the House of Representatives, in which the votes are expected to be close. One selling point made by Mexico, Colombia and Peru is that the defeat of any or all of these agreements would strengthen the political hand of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. One problem with this strategy for Panama is that it has cordial relations with Venezuela. Another problem with this pitch for Democrats in Congress is that Colombia is seen as a pariah nation in which paramilitary hit men to kill union organizers and the legitimacy of the elections that brought the current Mexican administration to power is suspect, so the anti-Chávez cards that these countries play tend to be dismissed as right-wing contrivances. Peru and Colombia have ratified their agreements, which have no labor protection provisions, but the US-Panama deal specifically left labor for outside negotiations and thus there is a chance for a side agreement in our case to placate the Democrats and the AFL-CIO, which does not exist as to Colombia and Peru. But the AFL-CIO is raising a host of other objections, one of which is the Panamanian government's corruption. The labor federation argues that without any effective rule of law here there can't be a level playing field for American businesses. Look for either a compromise between the White House and Democrats that leads to all three pacts' ratification or the lack of such an agreement and the rejection of all three deals.

US-RP free trade champion in trouble

US Representative Rick Renzi (R-Arizona) has been one of the leading congressional voices in favor of the US - Panama Free Trade Agreement. He's the son of Eugene Renzi, a retired military man and major defense contractor who heads the US - Panama Business Council. Both the Moscoso and Torrijos administrations have lauded him as a good friend of Panama. It might just be that, while labor unions and some Democrats in Congress are blasting Panama for its pervasive government corruption, Renzi has a special understanding of these things. How's that? Well the FBI is investigating Renzi for manipulating legislation so as to steer Pentagon contracts to his daddy's company, and in a separate matter federal agents raided the real estate office of Renzi's wife, looking for evidence that Renzi used his political influence to secure a lucrative government real estate deal for one of his close friends. But what's corruption without impunity? Well, it seems that Renzi may have been seeking to import that sort of Panamanian-style politics into the US culture as well. There's an ongoing argument about the Bush administration firing eight federal prosecutors district attorneys for allegedly improper reasons, and one of these, Paul Charlton, appears to have lost his job specifically because he was investigating Renzi. Renzi has recused himself from the House Intelligence Committee while the scandals take their course, thus avoiding an acrimonious fight that would give Democrats the opportunity to charge that America's secrets were being given to a man who would sell out the public whom he was elected to serve. And it doesn't appear that many members of Congress will want to listen to what either Renzi has to say about Panama.

More convenient junkets on COPA?

If you are a member of the US Congress who needs to investigate this or that crucial question and otherwise have a good time in sunny Panama, life is about to become just a bit easier. COPA Airlines is expanding its services again, with flights every morning between Panama and Washington DC and vice versa beginning on July 15. The airline also announced that on that same date it will begin twice a week service between here and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.

Balboa's port activity grows, Colon's shrinks

Latin Business Chronicle reports that in 2006 the port of Balboa, which is run by a local subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings, increased the volume of containers it handled by 48.8 percent, while Colon, which has the Manzanillo International Terminal (Stevedoring Services of America), Cristobal (Hutchison Port Holdings) and Colon Container Terminal (Evergreen) saw a combined shrinkage in volume handled of 5.2 percent.

Job losses, demotions in ACP reorganization

You hear this mantra from just about every business organization that makes a habit of fraudulent misrepresentations: "He was never authorized to say that, and anyway he doesn't work here anymore." And so it seems goes the Panama Canal Authority. Recall that the main proponents of the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan to expand the Panama Canal, Martín Torrijos and Alberto Alemán Zubieta, refused to debate with skeptics in the course of their government-funded "yes" campaign. In one of the few debates they sent Rodolfo Sabonge and Augustín Arias Chiari to double-team former canal deputy administrator Fernando Manfredo at St. Mary's Church in Balboa. At that debate, using an ACP PowerPoint display, Sabonge and Arias Chiari promised that the canal expansion project, which will directly employ about 6,000 workers, will create 297,400 new jobs. Officially, Panama has about 115,000 people who are unemployed. (But then, the guy who sells oranges at a traffic light is considered "employed" by our government statisticians.) In the recent reorganization that made former Cable & Wireless exec José Barrios Ng the canal's number two man, Sabonge was moved out as top ACP press man in a "lateral" transfer that gives him much less responsibility and a lower profile in the organization chart and Arias Chiari had his chief engineer's position split in two. Sabonge plugs along with a desk, two secretaries under his and not so much to do, a source at the ACP tells us, but meanwhile Arias Chiari has quit, according to La Estrella because of his disagreement with the reorganization. Some lesser employees in the Admin Building, we are told, heard about a reorganization through the media over a weekend and came to work that Monday and found they had no jobs or different jobs.

Ocean Embassy files defamation charge

Ocean Embassy, a US-based company that wants to capture 80 dolphins from Panamanian waters and exhibit some of them at a proposed "swim with the dolphins" part in San Carlos has filed calumnia e injuria (criminal defamation) charges against Dr. Celma Moncada, a leader in the movement of animal welfare advocates and environmentalists who oppose the company's project. The gist of the company's complaint is that Moncada has claimed that Ocean Embassy seeks to export dolphins caught here and the company denies it. The case becomes complicated by the difficulties of proving intent and what may happen in the future, and because the principals of Ocean Embassy have been involved in the dolphin export business and the facility proposed for San Carlos is way too small to accommodate 80 dolphins. Moncada, for her part, has filed a complaint alleging that Ocean Embassy has made false claims about the size and nature of what the operation they want to set up here. The Public Ministry has not yet taken on Ocean Embassy's case as its own prosecution, but did serve Moncada with the charges within four days of their filing, which is an unusually fast process.

Sosa gets cookie wrapper monopoly

The Torrijos cabinet has given former National Police chief José Luis Sosa, a naturalized Panamanian of Cuban origin and veteran of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs exile invasion who served as police chief during the Pérez Balladares administration, a choice plum. His family's company, Celloprint SA, now has an effective monopoly over cookie and candy wrappers used by local manufacturers because the cabinet has raised duties on propylene-based wrapping materials from 6 percent to 59.9 percent and PVC films from zero to 79 percent. The biggest supplier of these materials was Peru, as a Peruvian company had the contract with cookie maker Productos Alimeniticios Pascual SA. Colombia and China also had parts of the Panamanian market. With the new protectionist duty, however, the only supplier that can compete is the Sosa family's company.

Futuro Forestal gets CCBA certification

Futuro Forestal, a Panamanian forest products company, is the first business here to get its practices certified by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), a coalition of environmentalist, business, research and educational groups that promotes sustainable forestry practices. The certification will make it easier to qualify the forests that the company manages for international carbon exchange certificates, make make investments in the company more attractive to those mutual funds that stress business ethics, make financing from international lenders more available and make the company's wood products more attractive to many buyers. In exchange, by adhering to CCBA standards the company is adding value to degraded lands rather than cutting down existing forests to replace them with commercial monocultures, planting native species and preserving mangrove forests so as to extend and preserve wildlife habitats, and using natural fertilizers rather than petrochemicals to feed the trees. The hope is that over the long term exhausted lands from which people are fleeing to the cities in search of jobs will be transformed in a way that allows more rural residents to make a living working in the forestry sector.

Environmentalists file petition against AES dams

The US-based Center for Biological Diversity and some 30 other groups have filed a petition in the Paris offices of the World Heritage Committee to have La Amistad International Park declared endangered by plans for a series of four hydroelectric dams that the US-based AES Corporation would install on the Changuinola River. The park, which straddles the Panama - Costa Rica border, is listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), of which the World Heritage Committee is a part. If the committee does follow up on the petition by declaring the park endangered, then Panama would have a treaty commitment to meet with UNESCO do draw up a plan to save it from the specified threat. Critics say that the dams would affect an area of about 600 square miles, including by destroying the habitats of several species of birds that are found nowhere else. The Changuinola River's headwaters are in the park and in addition to protected wilderness the river flow through lands belonging to the indigenous Naso and Ngobe peoples.

Mariano Rivera teams up with Fisher-Price

Yankees pitching star Mariano Rivera, the son of a sardine fisherman, didn't have a lot of toys around his house in Puerto Caimito when he was a kid. But now he's a millionaire man times over and a philanthropist both in his adopted hometown of New York and back here in Panama. Here he has been generous in donating toys to pass out to needy kids at Christmas and computers for after-school educational programs. Now in New York Rivera has teamed up the Fisher-Price toy manufacturing company (now a division of Mattel after a process of mergers and acquisitions) to equip Casita Maria, a 73-year-old community center serving the needs of the Big Apple's Spanish-speaking poor, with new toys. It works out well all the way around: Rivera, off to a slow start this season as is his norm, gets some good publicity in the weeks before his pitching gets to the point at which nobody can get a hit off of him; Fisher-Price gets both good publicity and the prospect of Hispanic families exposed to their toys when they are poor becoming loyal customers when they are no longer poor and are buying toys; and Casa Maria, formed in 1934 by followers of social reformer Jane Addams, gets toys for its playrooms.

More academic fraud at the University of Panama

Cheating is so flagrant at the University of Panama that you need not set foot on campus to see it: surround thing the university you see all sorts of signs advertising theses and term papers for sale. Now it turns out that a professor has been caught for copying someone else's master's thesis and selling it to two different undergraduate students to be submitted as their term papers. The prof got a two-year suspension. The university's rector is understanding about such things: his own doctoral diploma is fake.

Caritas assets sequestered

On orders from the Vatican there is a worldwide purge of Liberation Theology advocates from Catholic Church organizations and in Panama this has meant the firings of a number of people from the Caritas social ministry. It seems that in doing this the Catholic hierarchy, representing God's law as they believe they do, have neglected certain obligations under Panama's Labor Code. As in not paying some $66,000 in severance pay to fired Caritas employees. A Ministry of Labor judge has thus ordered the sequestration of Caritas assets in that amount to cover amounts allegedly owed to five workers who were let go at the end of March.

You first read about it here...

A few issues back The Panama News ran an exclusive photo feature about a new trash dump in San Carlos for which there was no permit. Attorney Grettel Villalaz, who served as vice minister of public works during the Moscoso administration took a CD with those pictures --- she's a bit closer to the source who provided them to us than we are --- and visited the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) office for Panama Oeste in San Carlos. It turns out that a permit had been sought for the dump, ANAM rejected the request and the dump promoters went ahead and opened it anyway. So ANAM, evidence in hand, showed up at the dump and shut it down. (Now, if they ignored a permit denial, will the respect a cease and desist order? We shall see.)

Bush - Lula declaration makes biofuels an international political issue
Habeas data information lawsuits over Odebrecht highway contract
Bocas oil spill controversy doesn't go away

Ad cartel backs an embattled friend
Business & Economy Briefs