PANAMA’S  Transparency and Access to Information Authority (Antai)  has added its voice to a chorus of demands, including the Supreme Court to lift the secrecy veil over staff hired for professional services, which were often not provided..

In a letter to Assembly president   Yanibel Ábrego, and with a copy to the secretary-general, Franz Weber, the director of the Antai, Angelica Maytin Justiniani, warns that the issue is about public information and requests the Assembly to comply with the habeas data granted by the Supreme Court (CSJ) to La Prensa.

"We must reiterate that we are talking of free access to information in the hands of a State Organ that does not maintain any type of restriction and does not maintain the parameters of confidential information.

We also remind you that we are dealing with the management of public funds, which forces the entity to provide detailed accounts as is done by the other entities of the central government, … which is not the type of information or data, which the legal system classifies as restricted or confidential access, " says the letter signed by Maytin Justiniani and received in the Assembly on Friday of last week.

La Prensa  has requested from the Assembly -since the start of 2017- the list of the personnel hired, with names and cedulas, their functions and individual amounts of the contracts. In the absence of a response, it went to the CSJ, which granted the habeas data.

Abrego and Weber have failed to respond to cell phone calls and emails says La Prensa