Community budgets cut – promotion gets $2 million

Panama’s mayor Roxana Mendez,has slashed $7 million from community board budgets for 2013, but allocated $2 million for communication and advertising.

The propaganda budget says Rio Abajo, representative, Javier Ortega is because of upcoming elections and the mayor wants to hold her job.
Other opposition councilors, who have described budget cut as a "political punishment."
Ortega, who told La Prensa that Mendez seeks to "economically strangle" the representatives of kocal communities who mostly belong to the opposition.
‘We are offering $ 54,000 per month for the operation of each community, "complained Ortega, of the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).
Ortega also indicated that councilors of the ruling Democratic Change (CD) are against the move by Mendez .