Panama debt at record high and climbing
The administration of Ricardo Martinelli has resorted like no other to increase the debt and has used more resources than any of his predecessors to cover government spending.
On June 30, 2009, a day before Martinelli took office, Panama had debts of $10.802.billion.
After three years in the presidential chair, the President has raised the debt by $3.1 billion, to $13.901billion says a La Prensa report.
The trend will continue in the two remaining years of management, because, according to government estimates, in 2015 the stock of debt will exceed $15.3 billion.
The rise in government income has done little to stop this pattern of debt.
In 2008, during the administration of Martin Torrijos, the current revenues of central government, which feed mainly on taxes Panamanians were for just over $4.5 billion while last year the figure was $5.662 billion.
By the end of his term, the intention of Martinelli is to invest $13 billion, and to tackle such an ambitious plan has used funding mechanisms, such as the so-called "turnkey" projects which means to procure works which would be paid in this and future administrations, thus avoiding commitments to show increase on the books. Under this scheme are contracted projects for more than $3 billion.
The President of the College of Economists, Raul Moreira, says that the state investment plan requires a lot of pressure in collection, to try to plug a budget gap of $ 400 million which we have seen in recent days
