Storm clouds over president with donations bombshell
WHILE President Juan Carlos Varela, and key players in the Panamenista ruling party. along with some 47 businessmen were in China, celebrating the opening of Panama’s new embassy to the world power broker, a new threat to the administration was gathering at home.
The slow-burning fuse to the latest bombshell was lit in February this year when Ramon Fonseca, then a presidential adviser was called in for interrogation linked to the Panama Papers revelations. The distraught founding partner of Mossack Fonseca stood on the sidewalk in front of the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office and told media that Varela has received money from Odebrecht during his presidential campaign.
Soon after his election, the Varela administration favored Odebrecht with billions of dollars in contracts in spite of the growing Lava Jato scandal and the jailing of top Odebrecht officials who were once feted in Panama.
The revelations of a former Panama ambassador that he had transferred $700,000 of Odebrecht money through foundations to support Varela, were brushed aside by the president, but the fuse continued to smolder, and with the publication of news that both the CD and Panamenista Parties are under investigation for receiving some $10 million from the Brazilian construction giant it will take more than denials to silence the bang.
La Estrella de Panama surveyed businessmen and political observers and the common denominator was that like the bribes all “donations” must be clarified.
A September report from the DIJ, the Directorate that investigates crimes against Public Administration, revealed that the company negotiated the payment of continued amounts between 2009 and 2010, until 2014, for a total of $10 million in favor of offshore companies indicated by former ambassador Jaime Lasso, close to Varela.
Although Lasso does not know the amount indicated in the police document, he admitted that he collected funds for the group with the intention of unseating the then ruling party, Cambio Democrático (CD), in the 2014 elections.
Lasso called Martinelli’s government the most corrupt in the country’s history and was, the reason why he supported the Panameñista as a way to “clean up the public administration”.
Laundering
“Lasso) must have charged for lobbying.What he delivered to the Panameñista Party incurred the crime of money laundering by not delivering the contribution directly to the party, and using an offshore third party, to cover who was the donor, “said Guillermo” Willy “Cochez, former Ambassador to the Organization of American States
Cochez said that the president was slow to admit that he received donations from Odebrecht. Months later, he admitted receiving aid from the company that in ten years got more than $9 billion in contracts.
“What worries me,” adds Cochez, is that first of all, Varela delayed talking while he wondered how to justify the millions he received”
Cochez said “I told President Varela when I met him on August 9 in the Presidency, that it is unheard of that nothing has been done in the Supreme Court with the file of the deputy Jorge Alberto Rosas, and I mentioned that Rosas was charged with distributing Odebrecht money”
Because of the lack of credibility in the judicial and investigative system Magaly Castillo, of the Citizen Alliance for Justice, is calling for an independent commission to audit investigations carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
