Lawmakers’ honey pot closed,auditors evicted

The skirmishes between Yanibel Ábrego, president of Panama’s National Assembly and the Comptroller General, Federico Humbert erupted into an open confrontation on Tuesday, June 5 when  Humbert ordered the suspension of all payments related to an  Assembly expense reporting form.

Form 080 includes contract payments to office staff and other outlays, some dubious, of up to $30,000 a month for each deputy.

The move came after the team of inspectors carrying out the concomitant evaluation of form 080, was evicted from the office where it had been installed, and security personnel from the Assembly withdrew all the boxes of documents related to the work, including the work papers of the Comptroller’s staff.

The decision was communicated to Ábrego in a letter signed by Humbert.

“The aforementioned action entails the loss of integrity of the documentation and the supporters of the work carried out, which prevents us from continuing with the aforementioned examination. Your decision does not allow the Office of the Comptroller to conclude the review of the documentation, which is why we have ordered the suspension of payment of all the returns related to the aforementioned object of 080, for the inability that has imposed us to be able to exercise our mission “, Humbert  wrote

Earlier the suspension of payment of the 080 form was  made to 20 deputies who did not provide adequate supporting documentation

The audit was underway following published reports of millions of dollars being spent by deputies on projects whose intended recipients never received the money, with a percentage known as “cash back ending up in the deputies offices.

The monthly allocation per deputy went from $4,000 per month  in 2015 to $30,000