Unqualified lawmakers seizing real power
The Constitution does not require deputies to be able to read and write, have work experience, pass an aptitude test, or, judging by the number of chauffeurs not even a driver’s license.
Not even having helped a granny to cross the street. Only have reached 21 years of age and not have been convicted of certain types of crimes -or be skilled enough not to have received a conviction- writes Monica Palm in La Prensa.
Such a low standard has not prevented them from seizing real power in the country. And not because they pass laws, which is their constitutional function (or shelve them). Only in the last week have they summoned officials, created ministries, dictated the country’s criminological policy, arranged the distribution of bonuses, and reordered the general budget of the State. And if the Executive sends back a bill without sanctioning it, they approve it by insistence.
No accountability
And while executive officials have to go to the Assembly every time they are summoned, deputies are not accountable to anyone. They are demigods who can even say whatever they want, with impunity. If in the middle of the year they said they were taking advantage of a cost containment plan and ended up spending $11.9 million more during the supposed austerity, nothing happens, since they are not even responsible for their votes and decisions in office, thanks to article 154 of the Constitution, which constitutes a license for demagoguery.
If prisons are schools of crime, the Assembly has become an academy for the appropriation of public management, at the point of insult, blackmail, lock-ups in the little room, or whatever is necessary.
Every self-respecting wolf family has an alpha male. In the Legislative, the reins are held by the Budget Commission, a virtual filter of public funds that has learned to let the smallest particles of the budget pass through its mesh, and to retain the large ones to leverage its power.
This week, they recommended modifications to the 2023 general state budget, for $459.4 million. This translates into more money for some institutions, to the detriment of others. Before the Credentials Commission, the largest hospitals that operate in the public sector asked for more money, because what they have assigned is not enough. The Oncology, which treats 4,000 new cancer patients annually, asked for an additional $10 million and was denied.
The José Domingo de Obaldía Hospital, the main one in Chiriquí, said that in March it will no longer have money to operate.
Nor will there be more money for Senacyt and Gorgas, the two scientific entities most affected in budgetary matters. In contrast, the commission did provide more money for the mayor’s offices, the community boards, the DAS, and the Unachi… Those are their real priorities.
And it is not that nobody warned the president that the deputies would assault the public administration) and be the de facto rulers of the country. Quite a few times they rebuked him on that issue during the campaign and he, speaking in the third person, always said that as of July 1, 2019, the one who was going to govern here “is called Nito Cortizo.” Where is the country’s institutionality? If anyone has seen it, please let me know.
