THE PROBLEM plagued  Amador  Convention  Center is 42 percent  complete   with a planned completion date of late 2018.

work was stopped for 12 months, after the consortium HPCContratasP & V, which was

awarded the project in 2012 for $193.7 million, claimed liquidity problems.

The company is now in the center of a corruption scandal over the granting of a loan by the state-owned bank, Caja des Ahorros, whose former bosses are behind bars awaiting trial.

Also linked through a complex net of business connections is  a group of one-time high profile members of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli’s “zero (inner) circle”.

The current CCA Cocige consortium consists of  the China State Construction Engineering Corporation Ltd CCA Building Panama, S.A.,  and Construcciones Civiles Generales, S.A. (Cocige),

The project is built on a plot of 100,000 square meters and will have a capacity for up to 35,000 people.

The widened Amador Causeway access road  to the center was completed last month