Panama Comptroller Points to a Loss of $52 Million for Economic Aid
The Comptroller General of the Republic, Anel Flores, reported that after a review process, an economic loss to the State of more than 52 million dollars was detected as a result of the economic aid given by the Institute for the Training and Use of Human Resources (IFARHU). Flores said that, following these irregularities, more than 4,000 files were analyzed and more than 2,860 were delivered to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which add up to an economic loss to the country and to the money of Panamanians of more than 52 million dollars. The comptroller stated: “We hope that the Public Prosecutor’s Office will do the same and that we can recover those funds or convert them into loans due to the misuse of Panamanian money.”
It is worth noting that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has already brought some 20 cases against beneficiaries of the economic aid, which was granted during the administration of Bernardo Meneses, who is in pretrial detention. The audits “reveal mismanagement in the economic aid and scholarship program, with financial loss through a ‘cashback’ scheme, where recipients (of the funds) reimbursed money to accounts of the former director of the entity (Meneses),” the Prosecutor’s Office indicated. An audit report reveals that Meneses “has not been able to justify $419,000” in income, which supports the accusation of unjust enrichment, the crime that has kept him in pretrial detention since last July.
During the government of Laurentino Cortizo (2019-2024) of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the epicenter of the scandal, $260.5 million was delivered through 9,237 “economic aids.” The comptroller also announced that next week the Comptroller’s Office will deliver additional audits related to 18 decentralized community boards from the previous government. “You’re going to find many of the famous, emblematic community boards, and everyone wants to know what happened to their money, and we suspect that they were used as aid, more than anything, for the electoral issue,” he said during President José Raúl Mulino’s weekly press conference.
