Business execs slam bureaucratic  reopening plans

The Panamanian Association of Business Executives (Apede)  marching in lockstep with the Chamber of Commerce on  Sunday. May 24 stated in a statement published this Sunday, May 24called for a gradual and safe revival of the economy after the pandemic stoppage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic : “it is required to act with a great dose of “realism, agility and common sense ”.

The Association highlighted that the Government took drastic measures that have managed to decrease and stabilize the levels of contagion, but which, “unfortunately”, affected economic activity, rising unemployment levels.

The executives warn, however, of a series of difficulties for the companies due to the demands made by the authorities for the reopening.

They claim that the protocols established by the Ministry of Labor and Labor Development (Mitradel), “are complicated and do not guarantee what they are looking for, since they allow for some considerations that are not related to the mitigation of contagion and formulas that are impossible to comply with and audit ”.

“We must work on adaptable and generic health guidelines since only companies and their workers understand the reality of their environment, as the Ministry of Health has stated,” says the association, which also warns of the difficulty for companies with more than  51 workers to hire a professional in occupational safety, as is being demanded, “taking into account that there are not enough qualified professionals in this field” and that, “with the fall in demand, companies are not able to hire additional personnel or services ”.

They also demand the creation of a single-window that allows an effective and expeditious process of the accreditation process of sanitary guidelines. “The state bureaucracy should not be another obstacle to overcome on the way to achieve the new normality,” said Apede: “we live in a free enterprise regime that cannot and should not be replaced by state imposition.”