For the president of the Panameñista Party and former mayor of the capital city, Jose Isabel Blandón, the increase of more than 2 million dollars to carry out the Christmas parade must be explained in detail to the citizens the reason for said increase so that there is transparency.
“We are talking that together only the Christmas parade and the lighting are going to cost the municipal taxpayers 5.7 million, in the case of our administration both things in the greatest of cases end up costing 3.2 million dollars, that increase of more of 2 million dollars must be explained”, said Blandón
During the administration of José Blandón as mayor of the capital city, the Disney parade that had an international exhibition was brought in at a cost of 3.7 million dollars, an amount much lower than the Christmas parade that will take place in this year 2022.
Regarding the organization of the event, Blandón said that this activity was not well planned and they waited until the last minute to have the excuse to make a direct tender: “To say now that you did not bid because there was no time, if every year you know that You will do a parade, and at the last minute you decided to do the parade, it is not because there was no time, it is because it was not planned in time or you simply did not want to bid for it and you waited until the last minute to have the excuse of bidding for it directly”.
This controversy arises after the mayor, Jose Luis Fábrega, informed that the Christmas lighting will start on December 1st. The Christmas parade will take place on December 11th with the motto “Let’s dream of Panama, Christmas is here”, when weeks ago he had said that the parade was not going to take place.
