CORRUPTION: Large Companies Absent in Panama Tenders

It is significant that there is no participation in the tenders for large scale government works in Panama by companies from countries where bribery abroad is criminalized says CentralAmericaData

An article in Prensa.com by Jorge Gamboa Arosemena contains the key points to analyze this issue, following the announcement of the winner of the tender for the works of Line 2 of the Panama Metro.
“… The tender for line 2 of the Metro was awarded to a consortia formed of the Brazilian company Odebrecht and the Spanish company FCC. The spectacle was played out in detail. With the stage set, the actors, script writers, and prompters in the theater of public procurement, after considering the proposals of only three consortia, announced the expected result, that FCC-Odebrecht had won “

“… It is striking that companies from countries such as the United States, Canada, Britain and Germany, whose laws punish acts of unfair competition, such as giving bribes to government contracting officials, did not participate. Those that did are from countries that have no such restrictions, and several have been challenged in different countries, including our own. “

The non-participation as suppliers by American construction companies in the tender for Metro Line 2 has already been noted: In an article on CentralAmericaData .COM in February this year it was noted: “…In this regard it should be recalled that during the strike of works to expand the Panama Canal, the US government criticized the award of the contract to the consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal(GUPC) whose financial viability was supported by the Spanish State, and not by a market assessment.
The North American firm Bechtel formed a consortium with Taisei and Mitsubishi from Japan, whose bid was considerably higher than the consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal, but in the end the price was hundreds of millions of dollars above their initial bid.