Panama’s 12-year $1.3 billion boondoggle

Who can be against the health services for patients of the Social Security Fund (CSS) being of the best quality? Or that you have to make the investments that are necessary to serve them? Nobody is, but what we do not agree on is the lack of vision and planning; nor in improvisation. And that not only concerns this government but everyone. The rule is to improvise, so much so that the Ciudad de la Salud project has been going on for twelve years and is going through its ninth addendum to the contract, this last time for almost an additional $230 million. And that is equivalent to 40% of the cost of the project, which was originally agreed at $554 million. With this addendum, the Hospital City will cost about $1,268.7 million, if a tenth or eleventh addendum does not appear, which we do not doubt will happen, because, instead of looking after the best interests of the State, we have a gang of officials, whose singularity is their incompetence: they do not know priorities –except their pockets–; they do not know about savings or austerity; they do not know efficiency; they don’t know how to listen; they don’t even know how to learn. I mean, they have no idea what they’re doing. And surely we deserve it for choosing the worst in the political fauna. – LA PRENSA, Aug. 4.