Government calls for renewed dialogue with protesters

The  Government reiterated the call to resume dialogue with the sectors that are protesting, especially leaders of the National Alliance for the Rights of the Organized People (Anadepo) and other organizations.

“We call on the leadership of these groups to resume dialogue and avoid further damage to the teaching-learning process of more than 800,000 students across the country,” it said in a statement.

According to the note from the Presidency, “they appeal to the unspeakable political appetites not to intervene to stir up confrontations of all kinds between Panamanians.”

They listed, among other points, that the government, in three years of administration, has had to face 28 months of the pandemic, which produced a reduction in economic activity, an increase in unemployment and, as a result, a drop in people’s income and for the government.

In addition, they indicate that it has been facing for 6 months the effects of the war in Ukraine, which also produced an increase in the cost of fuel and the cost of living for all Panamanians.

They trust that, by the end of this year 2022, the economic and employment situation in force before the pandemic will be achieved.

The subsidy to the various transportation sectors has the objective of mitigating the increase in the cost of the products of the basic food basket and the cost of mobilizing the popular sectors and the middle class.