MEDIA WATCH: When a state body becomes private fiefdom

Hoyporhoy La Prensa, May 22

THE RECTOR of the University of Panama (UP) acts as if this state institution is part of his personal assets. He doesn’t give explanations for what he does or does not do in this school.

This official says he has all the documents that prove his good performance as head of the house of Mendez Pereira [founder of the University]. He goes to some lengths to give unsolicited explanations but ignores those who expressly request it, like this newspaper or the Comptroller General of the Republic.

He refuses with singular obstinacy to act like a person who is temporarily in the position he occupies serving  the state, not the state serving him . He says that people chasing him want to take the UP so that poor people cannot be educated when he has been responsible for the sale or rental of university heritage without benefits for those students who he claims to defend. His performance is far from his words.

His duty is to deliver information to whoever makes the application regardless of whether the applicant is a student, a medium or auditors of the Comptroller and to cease the practice of deciding to whom he chooses  to  deliver.