Panama Lawmakers who have been using up to $30,000 a month of taxpayer dollars to pay their staff and hangers-on are racing against the against the clock to prove to the country’s  Comptroller that the payments are genuine after he told 11 of them that the transfers from the State coffers will be frozen.

The move came after a recent audit revealed that the 11, representing all political parties and including the brother of President Juan Carlos Varela submitted expense claims on “form 080” without supporting documentation of what the  “workers” were contracted to do, and when they arrived and left.

Botellas
There has been a long tradition in Panama political circles of what are known as “Botella's”, largely nonexistent jobs or deadweight where the employee either doesn’t show up or drifts in and out when he or she feels inclined. Among them are party ladder climbers already employed in other government jobs like the Ministry of Health.

The amount allocated  to form 080, which for many is a  barely concealed synonym for “cookie jar”,  and covers staff contracts has grown from $4000 a month to $30,000 … from cookie jar to Ali Baba’s cave

Ricardo Martinelli when campaigning for the presidency famously referred to the Central American Parliament as “A den of thieves,”  and vowed to remove Panama from a talk-and-do-nothing” institution which largely served as a refuge for politicians avoiding prosecution for their sins while in office. Martinelli moved under the umbrella within 24 hours of fleeing the country to self-imposed exile, leaving behind the Panama Den he had managed for five years with many of the thieves facing prosecution as part of what Martinelli calls “political prosecution” with the Capo himself in the role of Martyr in chief.

Meanwhile, back in Ali Baba’s cave. aka. The National Assembly  President Varela’s brother Popi Varela said he did not know that the procedure had to be done and that they had not received a note from the Comptroller's Office. "I had never been asked for any requirement for payment of that  spreadsheet I am asking for the new requirements to present them." He said and welcomed any move towards greater transparency.

A few days earlier he got a taste of transparency when a photograph of him huddled over coffee in the Miramar Hotel with Martinelli lawyer, spokesman, and source of the “political persecution” mantra, Eduardo Camacho, appeared in social and traditional media.