|
|
|
|
|
News
| Economy
| Culture
| Opinion
| Lifestyle
| Nature |
Volume 14,
Number 20 |
Also
in this section: Brazilian
corporation lowballed the government in no-bid contract
Cost
of Panama-Colon
Autopista goes up 80% by Eric Jackson On October 16 the commander of General Noriega's Dignity Battalions goon squad, now Minister of Public Works Benjamín Colamarco, specifically admitted what many people had long generally predicted, that the $215.8 million price tag on the Panama-Colon toll road was absurdly low. At a ceremony to begin the construction of the roadway's new bridge over the Chagres River, Colamarco casually pulled a Boston Big Dig move, telling the nation that the earlier figure didn't include work that's off the books and that the real price will be 80 percent higher at $380 million. Understand the illegality of this operation all along. The Supreme Court has denounced Colarmarco and other Torrijos administration officials for violating the transparency law by denying documents to Kevin Harrington, the court-appointed receiver for the PYCSA construction consortium, which has never paid for much of the land that it seized to build the Corredor Norte and whose sole important unencumbered asset was the concession to build the toll road to Colon. Ignoring the receivership, the Torrijos administration transferred the PYCSA concession to Odebrecht, defrauding the creditors of their right to compensation for the asset. The Brazilian-based Odebrecht was recently expelled from Ecuador for a structurally unsound and unusable hydroelectric dam megaproject, but is most infamous for acting as a construction industry clearinghouse in a massive bid rigging scandal that forced the resignation of Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992. Due to Panama's corporate secrecy laws, the identities of those who own shares in Odebrecht's local subsidiary is not in the domain of public information. A company spokesman declined to directly answer this reporter's direct question about persistent rumors of a member of the Torrijos family owning a stake. Despite its not having filed the low bid among the large, prequalified bidding companies, Odebrecht was given the controversial Cinta Costera contract. In its work on the Panama-Colon Autopista, Odebrecht has distinguished itself by hiring hoodlums who have shot and stabbed members of the SUNTRACS construction workers' union with police complicity --- things like the cops doing a disappearing act just before the Odebrecht goons opened fire, killing SUNTRACS picket leader Osvaldo Lorenzo. So what was "off the books?" The biggest item was that the plan for the road came up several miles short of the city of Colon, with its southernmost point in Cativa. Colamarco blamed the cost overrun on Colon Free Zone merchants and city officials. As soon as details of the plans were released, Harringon warned that the price tag was unrealistically low, precisely due to the things that were left out. Much later, this past September, the Panamanian Society of Engineers and Architects Road Committee --- which is headed by former PRD legislative candidate Nicolás Real, warned of serious cost overruns. Real complained not only of the missing connection with the city of Colon and the Free Zone, but also cited examples of double payments for Odebrecht. Colamarco told La Prensa that the Odebrecht subsidiary that will have a 30-year concession to run the toll road will charge higher tolls, estimated at $3 each way for a car and $6 for a truck, to cover the cost overrun. Also
in this section: News
| Economy
| Culture
| Opinion
| Lifestyle
| Nature
Noticias | Opiniones | Archive | Unclassified Ads | Home Make
the Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City --- http://ww.executivehotel-panama.com |
||||||||||
|
©
2008 by Eric Jackson email: editor@thepanamanews.com or e_l_jackson_malo@yahoo.com Mailing
address: |
|
|
||||||||
