OPINION: Walking the dollars walk  to re-election

The mayor of Colón, Alex Lee, cannot believe anything. In September of last year he promised that both he and 29 of his colleagues and 170 corregimiento representatives would eliminate from their income the collection of paid leave that they enjoy in other government positions. 

Five months later, all of them are still collecting every penny of those licenses for work they don’t do. His second lie is more recent. Lee promised to go “voluntarily” to give his statement in an investigation carried out by the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office, after testifying to the media about the use they give to the disproportionate and unjustified mobilization expenses that, in his case, amount to $3,500 a month, while thirteen out of fifteen corregimiento representatives in his district each earn $5,000 a month. Far from going voluntarily, Lee has already had to be summoned twice, and the Prosecutor’s Office has warned that if he does not go, he will be taken. Lee candidly admitted that the mobilization expenses are used to “walk” in their communities, “if not, they won’t win again, and a mayor who doesn’t walk, a representative who doesn’t walk, loses in his corregimiento” in the elections. A confession and relay of evidence – LA PRENSA, Feb. 20.