OPINION: Environmental absurdityE

In June 2017, the then minister in charge of Environment approved a resolution that took away the decision-making capacity of the regional directorates of this ministry, in relation to state works. This “favor”, carried out in close collaboration with the Secretariat of Goals, sought to accelerate the Government’s projects at the national level. Big mistake.

 On the one hand, the effort to decentralize the State was contradicted, and on the other, the citizens closest to the government works were excluded from expressing their opinions and influencing what affects them. The worst thing is that the environmental rules were discarded as if they were a mere paperwork or an unnecessary procedure, sending the most terrible message: the protection of nature is subordinated to the political and clientelism purposes of the moment. The Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice stopped this absurdity two years later. A few days before  the end of this administration, it is clear that its  environmental legacy was more attached to ribbon cutting than to the sustainability and defense of the heritage of all generations of Panamanians. – LA PRENSA, June 25.