President Mulino Accuses Crispiano Adames of Closures in Changuinola and Attacks Former CSS Directors

Panama City, Panama: President José Raúl Mulino addressed the closures in Changuinola, Bocas del Toro, at his press conference on Thursday. He described the dispute as a union dispute “between leftist sectors and political groups that are affected because they are no longer owners of the Social Security Fund.” He blamed Crispiano Adames, a deputy for the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), for the situation.  Mulino said the closures affect producers who cannot ship their products, children who cannot access cancer treatments and users of the Agricultural Marketing Institute (IMA) fairs who cannot hold them.  “The Social Security Fund was loot; today it’s no longer loot for any of those men, and they’re undermining it in Bocas del Toro, precisely because the government has left the scene of that type of corruption,” he pointed out. 

According to Mulino, we cannot “go back to a Social Security Fund that took more than six months for cardiovascular surgery, where if you were a friend or member of a union of the previous board of directors you were first in line, if you were not one of the board’s leaders, you had to wait months in line.”  The president argued that he “never heard apologies from the unions for the 30 years they were on the board of directors of the Social Security Fund, almost irremovable.”  Mulino criticized the coexistence with the management of former director Lau Cortés, the enormous debts left by Juan Jované, the thousands of appointments of friends from the power instances of the moment and a meeting between Lau Cortés and Crispiano Adames. 

“You have seen that the main critic, who goes to the counties to campaign against this government, is Crispiano Adames, a PRD deputy, who was twice president of the Assembly in the previous government and, furthermore, as the Comptroller General has shown, the owner of a number of corrupt appointments in the Assembly that answer to him ,” he stated.  He announced that in the coming days he will announce decisions of “historic significance.”  For Mulino, a claim may be legitimate, but “people who don’t want to lose the power and resources of the insurance company that are returning to the policyholders” have joined the fray.  Mulino reiterated that Bocas del Toro is currently a bigger problem than a closure, but they are making an effort with the commission that was sent and the union leadership, “with Mr. Francisco Smith,” to “prevent Chiquita Panama from leaving.” 

“They don’t understand that everyone from Smith on down will be out of work in a few days,” he said.  The president said that 7,300 employees will be affected because the “strike is declared illegal.”  He also invited Smith to “take a look around Puerto Armuelles and see if that’s what he wants for his union members in Bocas del Toro.”  He has not given the order to open Changuinola, pending an agreement reached through the dialogue table.  Yesterday, it was reported that the meeting between the Executive Branch and union members was suspended. It is expected to resume next week.