Comptroller reveals another phony jobs scandal

Some 30 people who receive salaries from Panamanian Autonomous Cooperative Institute (Ipacoop) but could not present the evidence of service performance will be the subject of a complaint filed with the Public Ministry by Panama Comptroller Federico Humbert.

He made the announcement on Thursday, February 21  during an inspection tour of the unfinished trouble plagued Amador Convention Center.

“Many employees who were given the authorization to work without having to go to the offices, authorizations that should not have been given,” he said. The amount involved is over a million dollars.

A paid job with no work is known in Panama as a botella (bottle)and has been widely practiced by corrupt elected officials as a way of rewarding political supporters, or of lining their own pockets,

“We had a suspicion, when since we started the audit. Within two days there were about 10 people who resigned, who had four years of working there,” Humbert said.added.

He added that “it will be up to the Public Prosecutor to do the investigations we are non-fiscal auditors. As we commonly call here in Panama, it seems that there were multiple bottellas there.” ‘

He pointed out that “in the same way that we oversee the National Assembly, we also supervise the executive and we will present the appropriate complaint, which is already being prepared by our lawyers,” he said.