Panama rejects opacity criticism
PANAMA’S Minister of Economy, Dulcidio De la Guardia, has dismissed the opacity criticism of American Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
De La Guardia says Panama will publish the findings of the commission convened by the Government to review the practices of the financial industry, to recommend actions to promote transparency of the system
“The position of f Panama is that the commission report be made public, and has already released the first report,” De la Guardia said in an interview with AFP in Washington on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, which closed on the weekend.
“The recommendations of the first report were already taken into account by the government,” he added.
The committee had been set on April 29, in a much publicized ceremony in including the participation of President Juan Carlos Varela, shortly after an investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), on the practices pf Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, which created complex networks of offshore companies for political leaders, athletes and entrepreneurs to conceal their wealth.
After the scandal, the Panamanian government formed the Independent Committee of Experts for the Center for Financial Services and Corporate Panama.
It was comprised of four Panamanians and three foreigners, including Nobel Prize economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz and the Swiss anticorruption pecialist Mark Pieth
The team aimed to propose measures to strengthen the transparency and the fight against tax fraud and money laundering .
But denouncing lack of transparency and limitations, Pieth and Stiglitz resigned in August.
De la Guardia called the move “unfortunate” and said: “The Government of Panama is disappointedTthe government wanted the commission to “identify the weaknesses of the Panamanian system and make recommendations to Panama” said the minister.
“Pieth and Stiglitz wanted to use the commission to make global recommendations,” he said.
Since the investigative journalism revelations were published, the Panamanian government has acted to update its legislation and adhere to international treaties on tax information exchange, De la Guardia said.
He recalled that in April the country signed an agreement for automatic exchange of financial information between two countries and expects to sign the multilateral convention in October OECD for fiscal exchange with the United States.
