The young activist and lawyer Freddy Pittí confirmed this morning that he will run for a seat in the 8-3 circuit in the National Assembly of Deputies.
Pittí, who will stand for the free candidacy, assured that this month he celebrates 10 years of citizen activism and that during that time he has not held any public office, much less has he been on any state payroll, for which he has decided to serve the country by a different way and enter the world of politics.
“It has been an activism that I really feel is a vocation, I enjoy doing this and I enjoy contributing to my country in the possibilities that I have and in fact I have made the decision to present my candidacy in the following days for the Assembly. I’m still evaluating some things, but in the next few days I’m going to make it official,” he said.
Pittí, is one of the citizens who requested access to information on some issues in the mayor’s office of Panama and received a brief response from the municipality on the morning of this Thursday, June 3.
The authorities invoked article 7 of the law of January 6, 2002, on Transparency and Access to Information, to avail themselves of an extension before giving a response.
Said article cites, among other things, the term in which responses must be given to requests for information made by citizens, but also states that “if it is a complex or extensive request, the official will inform in writing, within thirty calendar days, mentioned above, the need to extend the term to collect the requested information. In no case, said term may exceed thirty additional calendar days.
But the municipality’s response to Pitti’s opinion is nothing more than an unnecessary delay in the process; “I feel that the information we are requesting is not technical and the answer should have been ready for today, they are resorting to the Law so I am going to review the legislation and then we will see if it is as established in the article, but what I remember is that after submitting a petition they have 30 calendar days to respond and the 30 days are almost over,” he said.
Pitti recalled that his request for access to information is related to three issues; One is the unusual growth of the payroll to more than 1,000 contracted officials during the critical period of the covid-19 pandemic; two the existence of lines of transitory personnel and contingent personnel that represent million dollars in this budget of the municipality, and third the withdrawal of the financing to the NGO’s of social aid.
The lawyer said that if timely responses are not obtained from the mayor’s office, the next step will be to go before the Supreme Court of Justice to present a Habeas Data so that it decides and thus the country can know the answer to this issue.
