They cut more than $3 million from the ANTAI budget

A budget cut of more than $3 million was suffered by the National Authority for Transparency and Access to Information (Antai) during its presentation before the Budget Commission in the National Assembly.

According to Elsa Fernández, director of the entity, $6 million was requested from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, however; The recommendation of the regulatory entity of the Panamanian economy was 2.6 million dollars, for operation, personal, non-personal services and others.

Fernández assured that with this cut and without having the resources it is not possible to fight against corruption, he stressed that the entity only has 69 people to carry out the fight against corruption and they are not enough.

He added that they carry out various investigations such as the case of conflict of interest, they must follow up on the Summit of the Americas, the Dialogue Table and continue with the cases of nepotism and double wages that they are currently investigating.

As an example, he mentioned the confession of the director of the National Bingos who acknowledged that a relative works in the entity or the case of the administrator of the Authority for Consumer Protection and Defense of Competition, who pointed out that he had an official on the payroll who also She worked at the headquarters of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), but according to Fernández, she was actually informed that the official registered with the AN.

He said that this last case should be investigated very well since the budget regulations allow the exchange of personnel and it is not known if this is the case.