OPINION: Mortgaging Panama’s future

In the current five-year period, of the administration of President Laurentino Cortizo, almost 11 billion dollars of Panamanian public debt are due. That is equivalent to 40% of the public debt of the State. These obligations will have to be renewed or refinanced in some way in the coming years. Ideally, the new government should continue with its “austerity with efficiency” policy, and begin to reduce the weight of public debt in relation to our economy and the government’s fiscal revenues. In past administrations, new debt was contracted very lightly. It was used to pay cost overruns and fancy projects. They used accounting tricks to remove from the official account financial commitments of state-owned companies and the illusion remains that the actuarial deficit of the Social Security Fund is not part of the debt. The distant future to which all debts could be sent, without affecting the present, has ceased to exist. We Panamanians have great economic and social challenges that must be resolved with the resources we have, without continuing to mortgage future generations. Today we still have time to control our debt, and put our house in order.- LA PRENSA, Aug 7