Assembly staff pay remains on hold

The payment of “Form 80” which covers staff  “employed” by elected lawmakers  remains suspended said Panama Comptroller, Federico Humbert, on  Wednesday, July 18,

Humbert said: “We have been very clear: the person who provides a service for the National Assembly must charge, however, there were many people in the 080 that  were not providing services for the Assembly I think we obviously have to pay those who worked and who are the ‘botellas’ (fake jobs).

Payment will remain suspended for the people who cannot sustain that their service was for this institution.”

He added that a team of the Assembly has been visiting his technical team in the General Comptroller’s Office.

The comptroller also said that last week he had an interview with the president of the National Assembly,  Deputy Yanibel Ábrego over Form 172 which covers millions of dollars in payments for outside contracts, with new irregularities at the city racetrack this week.

On June 5, the Comptroller’s Office suspended the payment to 3,500persons named in the return 080, after an audit revealed irregularities in the management of the funds.

The National Assembly reported that on July 6, it would proceed with the total publication total of the 080 form on the institutional website, but to date it has not published anything reports La Prensa.