Corruption and the Sorcerers Apprentice
ANTI-CORRUPTION prosecutors investigating what are euphemistically called “irregularities” in the operation of the National Assistance Program (PAN) are working around the clock questioning suspects in a multi-million dollar scam that has involved scores of high profile actors, from former president, Ricardo Martinelli and leading members of his cabinet, to “upstanding” businessmen and women facing criminal charges.
They all had wo things in common, loyalty to the former ruling Democratic Change (CD) party, founded and ruled by Martinelli, and the key to the tax payer funded Aladdin’s cave konwn as PAN, enabling gargantuan self-enrichment from funds intended to benefit the less privileged members of Panamanian society, the very people in whose shoes Martinelli claimed to walk.
As the prosecutors carry out their interminable interrogations, sometimes lasting 12-14 hours, they peel back more layers from the maggot ridden fruit, leading to more investigations, and more interviews.
If you are a music lover you might compare their labors to the Paul Dukas symphonic poem, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, entertainingly played by Mickey Mouse in the 1940 Disney classic, Fantasia, with the lazy apprentice chopping at the magic broom bringing water from the well. Each chop created two brooms, and so it goes with the anti-corruption prosecutors.
On Monday, June 1, La Prensa published a double page spread showing some of the former government luminaries already embroiled,in the scandals, starting with Martinelli and including six cabinet ministers three vice-ministers, the country’s comptroller and the personal secretary of the former president. Some are already behind bars, other under house or country arrest, and some, like Martinelli and his former dog’s body have fled the country.
Then there is a list of ex functionaries, from directors of PAN, to former Security Council members and the head of the government tax department. The investigations underway cover the fraudulent pricing of grains, the supplying of dehydrated foods.the sale of school backpacks, food bags, helicopter rentals at inflated rates, the purchase of spying equipment, and the use of the equipment and the theft of tax money. With the latest revelations of alleged bribes in the aborted Tonosi irrigation project, more high profile Martinelli insiders will be facing probes. Add to that, 12 more alleged scandals involving previous administration departments and the anti-corruption prosecutors have a long series of furrows in to plow through fields of excrement.
. At the end of the day, in spite of multiple red herrings pulled across the trail by well-paid defense lawyers and heroic attempts by Martinelli’s newspaper, Panama America, and daily tweets from the prime suspect himself, , the overworked prosecutors may get their reward by seeing those who once had the keys to the jewels in Aladdin’s cave, hearing keys turned in the locks of Panama’s infamous jewel La Joya Prison.
