Partner of Presidents son could get Costa del Este land free

Ricardo Chanis Correa, president of the group which publishes Panama America and Critica, and is close to President, Ricardo Martinelli, could get 3.4 hectares of land  in Costa del Este,.free of charge.

He would be the second person close to Martinelli to try to  get ocean front land for free says La Prensa.

The previous case, which led to confrontations between Vice President Jaun Carlos Varela, and Finance Minister Alberto  Vallarino on one side  and Martinelli  on the othe  was with  Segura Ventures, Inc., when   a real estate lawyer did registration procedures  for Btesh & Virzi in the Public Registry of a site  in Paitilla, with a market value of  about $ 45 million.
Chanis Correa is a partner  with Ricardo Martinelli Linares, son of the President, in the Casamar Beach real estate development.

Linares Martinelli chairs the company and Resume Correa is treasurer. They will be opening the Panama Marriott Resort hotel Casamar in San Carlos in 2013.

Martinelli and Vallarino attended the announcement of the project.
La Estrella reported that Chanis Correa a member of the board of the Caja de Ahorros, began the titling process in 2002, but  during this government the process has been  moved forward, despite technical reports revealing that there were irregularities, said the newspaper article.
 One of these irregularities, says La Estrella, is that the ground is a "sea floor filler that occurred years ago and created a capital asset for the Nation."
 It also reveals  that the report made during an inspection carried out by surveyors from the National Land Authority (Anati), shows  the number of the land plot  in the documentation provided, does not belong to the land requested. But these anomalies were not considered by the Director of Land Titling, Anabelle Villamonte who was involved in the previous land grab.
 The Constitution  in Article 258, prohibits land lease or concession of landfill to individuals.
 While Chanis Correa does not appear in the Public Registry   as an officer or legal representative of the applicant company, Inmobiliaria Punta Selcha, it is he  who handled the papers to get it  free of charge, based on Act 80 created by  the present administration.

The Company  is devoted to urban development of properties, and its president is Allen Jackson Sellers Chanis.
Chanis Correa claims that the land belongs to his family which has spent decades trying to get title.
La Prensa   tried to get the version of the Presidency on the possible allocation of land to Chanis but received no answer.
 On Tuesday,  a group of deputies from the Panamenista, PRD and Molirena parties asked  Alejandro Castillero, administrator of the National Land Authority (Anati), to explain the process used to speed the acquisition of free pieces of land to, thousand feet in Costa del Este, and the controversial land grab of Paitilla.
 The initiative was supported by the deputy Jorge Alberto Rosas Molirena, who said that the law that created  Anati was born with substantial errors, and that "facilitates the abuse of state resources and gives too much discretion to  allocate valuable goods of the Nation."
La Prensa noted on Wednesdy that  in 10 days  a month  will have passed since its  request to the  Anati administrator for  the list of beneficiaries of land of the Nation. The authority has not yet responded.
 Chansi Correa told La Prensa: "I'm not doing anything illegal”
  The paper said  he waved document after document to show that a request to Anati had no vices by maintaining a close relationship with the executive.
"Everything is legal,"  he said  repeatedly as he  continued drawing documents from a leather bag that lay on the floor.
 He was commissioned as legal guardian of his family, the proprietor of land located in what today is known as Costa del Este, and claims to have possessor rights since the 1920's.
 The story is long, according to his arguments, and he did not think it fair to compare him with the "bad apples" who try to take advantage of Law 80 created by the Martinelli government to "help" families with scarce resources.
Chanis Correa said that it is true that,negotiations began in September 2010, based on Law 80  through Real Estate  Punta Selcha, but he  also says  that these lands are part of a "remainder" of a farm that his grandfather decided not to market when he sold the bulk of  estate 19249, located in Costa del Este.