YESTERDAY, the deputies of the National Assembly demonstrated their true colors and they revealed the swamp which Panamanian politics has become.

Although it seems to express irreconcilable differences, that group is united in one close link: the use and abuse of public funds. In the heat of the debate in the plenary on Monday they confessed that the expenditure for personal circuit ventures of each deputy increased from $4,000 to $30,000 per month. That means that in 2015 they spent $3.4 million dollars and   $14 million in 2016.

But not happy with that, a dark spreadsheet aimed at "investment" in the Assembly contains a line to make professional contracts. In 2014 that game

allocated only $200,000 for these contracts, but in 2015 it went to $13 million and in 2016 to $57 million and continued to rise.

So we come to the sum of $135 million dollars spent on supposed professional services between 2014 and 2017.

The creative deputies have found the formula to keep collecting money, and now they flatly refuse to be accountable for these funds. With these twisted morals, they still dare to throw stones … hoyporhoy, La Prensa, Jan.31