OPINION: Panama crisis rooted in lawmaker plundering

From 2015 until December 31, 2017, the National Assembly has disposed of $164 million in budget items for its permanent staff and contracts for professional services.

The famous heading “080”  of the payroll increased by 671%; that is, from $3.4 million in 2014 to $27 million in 2017. The service contracts item professionals, which was $201, in 2014, reached $48.1 million in 2017; so that It grew 24,000  times in just three years. These beauties, financed with the taxes of all Panamanians, were achieved by omitting phases of the budget cycle and with the facilitation, and even the complicity of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Behind these tens of millions hide the rattles, the agreements of governability and the complacency of alleged opponents, with laws and key initiatives of the current government. What happened when the floodgates of the prodigality of public spending were closed? Suddenly, the friendly benches became adversaries, and everything proposed by the executive power was rejected. That is the truth of the current crisis. It’s a matter of dollars and cents, not of awareness. LA PRENSA hoyorhoy Mar.28