Pardon for Social Security employee under scam investigation

 FORMER Social Security (CSS)General Secretary Doris Arias has been pardoned by former President Ricardo Martinelli for alleged irregularities in the hiring of companies Auguris Dell’ Angelo and Logística y Transporte Nacional (Logitransa).
The pardon to Arias was published in the Government Gazette Monday during the last hours of the Martinelli administration.

Arias worked at the Panamericano Bank, S.A. (Panabank), chaired by Guido Martinelli, until in 1995, when she was hired as an administrative agent in Social Security by then-director Ricardo Martinelli.
A May 2013 La Prensa investigation revealed irregularities in the hiring of the companies, which belong to Yadira Hawkins and her daughter Ethazel Gómez, who then shared the same offices, phones, emails and employees numbers.
While these companies competed for contracts, thus appearing to satisfy requirements of the public bidding process, there was a clear conflict of interest. They received contracts of more than $2 million in 18 months..
On May 17, 2013, National Transparency Authority Director Abigai¬l Benzadón asked the anti-corruption prosecutor to investigating Arias and other Social Security officials.
In the complaint filed by Benzadón, she questioned the awarding of the contracts to those firms and their qualifications for carrying out the work. It also stated that officials signed off on the work, but it was never completed.
Another company belonging to the same network of family-owned businesses was Consortium Palmas Verdes of Panama, which was awarded $60,000 contract to build a “luxury garden” which ended up being a few palms, gravel and a few square meters of grass.
That company, formed in 2011, also obtained a contract in August 2012 for $29,000 to clean the walls and clear the area around a building that was going to house a Social Security museum, but the project was later abandoned.
Social Security Director Guillermo Sáez-Llorens could not be reached for comment on the pardon, says La Prensa