OPINION: Another hit on city motorists

The privatization of parking meters in the capital will be another blow to the economy of citizens who use their own transport to move in this city that lacks sufficient parking and whose public transport system is just beginning to modernize. As if the fact that they must pay considerable tolls for the use of corridors, now the Municipality of Panama is preparing to privatize a service that will increase drastically next year. It is ironic that the lack of planning of public officials to create spaces that serve to park vehicles now becomes a lucrative business, without considering the needs of taxpayers, whose taxes have built the streets and for whose use will now again have to pay through this business. But, as if that were not enough, the benefited companies will receive the existing equipment for their use as if they had paid for it. Perhaps this has been the business of the century after the State delivered services and state equipment to the companies Port Engineering And Consultants Corporation (PECC) and Ocean Pollution Control (OPC). It is absurd that the 50 cents that it currently costs for an hour of parking, is intended to go up to $2 dollars and more, without having to make more investment.- LA PRENSA, Jan. 6