OPINION:  Excess rewards for a government darling company

As if the multimillion-dollar contracts with the State were trifles, one of the Government’s darling companies –Bagatrac– has obtained a concession for the exploitation of quarry stone, granted by the Ministry of Commerce and Industries in a 177-hectare plot of land. This is how the cake of the National Treasury is distributed, with friendly companies that go as far as paying bribes to officials, specifically in the Ricardo Martinelli administration in the Blue Apple case, to be government contractors. Bagatrac, whose owner is a representative of the corregimiento and its general manager, mayoress of Boquerón, in Chiriquí, triangulated an alleged sale of land in Boquete to a deputy from Bocas del Toro, where he immediately began the construction of expensive country residences. Here one hand washes the other, because there has been no problem on the part of the Minister of Public Works who, knowing of the corrupt past of this company, has had no problem entrusting it with state money. And now, amusingly, they give it a non-metallic mining operation. What will be the next thing they will give you? An asphalt plant? – LA PRENSA, Mar.27.