Oympic Committee asks audit of $14 million funding blackhole

Panama’s Olympic Committee (COP)  has called on the country’s Comptroller General to conduct an audit of multi-millions of dollars of public funds distributed by Pandesportes the government sports funding institute, that never arrived at the sports organizations they were intended for.

Instead, the money disappeared into the pockets of lawmakers or went to finance their re-election campaign according to an investigation conducted by a  La Prensa investigation team.

The COP made its request on Wednesday, October 31 and called for a follow-up investigation

“Once again we reiterate this request to Pandeportes, and we exhort the authorities to use all the means at their disposal to investigate the worrying and serious complaints made by this print medium, and to verify irregularities in their handling, that the respective denunciations are filed before the competent public authorities ” says a  COP communiqué.

The investigations show that Pandeportes disbursed, at least $14 million to various sports bodies between May 2014 and May 2017.