Panama for sale !

I have questions about the business of swabbing those traveling to the Pacific Islands. Didn’t the Health Minister know that two of his subordinates had this extra entry? Can I set up a mandatory swab business at David airport for those getting off an airplane?

I find it hard to believe that these two officials started a business without anyone at the Ministry of Health knowing about it. Minister, I don’t like that story. You have to be a fool to believe that something like this can happen considering that every time an islander or visitor tested positive, the laboratory had to report it to the Minsa. So how can you not know, if the ministry even has a list of those labs?

I can’t prove what I think, but that’s not why I’ll stop thinking about it, because in this country if you think badly, you’re right. And I, minister, do not believe you. But I admit that you are not the only culprit. Panama is for sale. We all buy and sell. Let’s see.

Police officers collect traffic tickets. That is their business. Every now and then someone refuses and only then does the state collect. Squatters steal vacant or private land that they then sell. Another theft – but legal – is to buy land from the State at $6 per hectare. (This is “paying” the square meter at 0.0006 cents).

The well-groomed charges to take care of something that nobody asks him to take care of. He charges – and several dollars – for street parking, something that would correspond to the mayor’s office, even for the use of a vacant lot. But the business has already been taken over by someone else, who collects that income.

Carnivals

In carnivals, the mayors set up their little business with the carnival meetings and charge each unsuspecting person to enter public space; they charge under the table to liquor companies; for food and beer stalls; They charge bribes for inspections that the firefighters must carry out, and even the discos go through the box office.

In coastal areas, representatives charge entrance to public beaches. In Kuna Yala you have to pay an expensive tax to go to the islands, not counting what you have to pay to bathe on the beach of an island with no more facilities than four coconut trees without coconuts.

The sidewalks are invaded by peddlers; companies take the easement for their customers to park or for their guests to dine in the moonlight. If you want to do business with the State, you have to pay hefty bribes to the contractor for permits, addendums for signatures, for proceeding, for stopping, for finishing, finally. A work in the public sphere costs 30% or 40% more than in the private sphere.

Judgments, court decisions and even expert opinions are also sold, so expensive that it is cheaper to pay the judge. Winning lottery tickets are obtained. And in elections, votes are bought and sold, the root of all our problems.

Rolando Rodriguez B – La Prensa