Padding the Christmas stocking from the taxpayer purse
(newsroompanama.com) The world of smoke and mirrors around the awarding of government contracts, national and municipal, got foggier this week.
At the city level,, questions are being raised about Excellence Art a company not listed with the Public Registry until April of this year according to La Prensa.
The company was awarded a $41,000 no bid contract in 2009 to design and build part of Mayor Bosco Vallarino’s abortive Christmas Village on the Cinta Costera. It had not been registered at the time the work was awarded.
This year the company’s Christmas stocking will grow fatter with the awarding of a $71,000 contract from the Ministry of Economy and Finance and another no-bid contract, for $30,000. from the Mayor's Office.
The Ministry is paying for some of the decorations that another Ministry had said last year would not be allowed back to the Cinta Costera, because of damage caused by crowds.
Art Excellence was hired again in spite of a negative review that said the company failed to deliver part of its promised display in 2009.
Further up the ladder The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has awarded a mining concession to a company with direct ties to President Ricardo Martinelli says La Prensa.
Industrias Básicas S.A., is directed by Riccardo Francolín, a former business partner of Martinelli says the country’s leading newspaper. It received a 25-year concession to extract gypsum, limestone, clay and other minerals in an area of 13.78 hectares in the district of La Chorrera.
Francolín and Martinelli were partners in a cement factory that was planned for the El Limón area La Chorrera that was eventually scrapped.
Martinelli is listed as a corporate officer of Industrias Básicas S.A. and Francolín is listed as president says La Prensa.
The mining contract signed between the Minister of Commerce and Industry Roberto Henríquez and the company in August 2009, but was not endorsed by the Comptroller until Oct. 8. It was published in the Official Gazette this week.
Francolín is also the current manager of Constructora Suárez, a family company of the Minister of Public Works, Federico Suarez.
Officials with the Ministry of Commerce defended the deal, explaining that anyone who meets the requirements can receive a concession.
When visiting Washington recently, Martinelli was interviewed on TV and said that President Obama should take a lesson from Panama and have more businessmen in his cabinet.
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Original Source: Newsroompanama.com
Date Retrieved: November 12, 2010.
