Cortizo puts a finger in the Social Security  dyke

 

As if it were a cake, Laurentino Cortizo announced how he has disposed of each portion of the contributions that the country will receive from Minera Panama. And the Social Security Fund (CSS) Disability, Old Age and Death program received half, or about $190 million a year. Such an injection is equivalent to containing the collapse of the institution by inserting a finger into the crack in the dam through which the water escapes. It is a small patch that seeks, illusory, to calm down so that it will be another one who has to take the harsh measures that are required for this subprogram of the CSS to survive. On what basis did you make that assignment? What relief will it bring through the years? Perhaps we will never know the answers because everything Cortizo does and his administration is the product of improvisation. And just as we don’t know those details, nor do we know –still at this point– the text of the new contract with the mining company, despite the fact that agreements were reached months ago. “Big Government” contempt for transparency is not ethereal. Since his first day at the Palacio de las Garzas, he has left a long trail of obscurantism and opacity. – LA PRENSA, Mar 31.