OPINION: Panama’s ticking time bomb

The country’s industrial sector is asking the Government for fiscal measures to prevent the high cost of importing goods and services from fully reaching the consumer. It is a temporary relief for a temporary situation, to which will be added the world recession that has already been warned and for which we have to prepare ourselves because to some extent it will affect us all, some more than others, but all of us. The warnings are on the table, so you also have to think of some more solutions to the problem that lies ahead. It will take the government to act in time, not when we are in the middle of a crisis – like the fuel or medicine crisis – where it acted only because social pressure forced it to do so. The Government needs to direct its efforts to the sectors that really need it, but they will not achieve it if the squandering continues on the state payroll, in subsidies for friends: they will not achieve it if they squander on parties, banquets, or unjustified salary increases. While the people live in hell, a caste of politicians lives in a paradise that we pay for with sweat and, not in a few cases, with tears and suffering. And that is creating a ticking time bomb. LA PRENSA, Jul. 4.