Monday
Monday 18th September 2023.
September 17, 2023
The former Minister of Health, Camilo Alleyne , will be the running mate of the official presidential candidate José Gabriel Carrizo .
This was endorsed in an extraordinary national board held this Sunday, September 17, 2023. Of the 296 members of the board authorized to vote on this day, 219 endorsed Alleyne’s candidacy as Carrizo’s running mate, 74 expressed their rejection, there were two blank votes and one null.
Alleyne is a doctor from Colon, born on July 4, 1952. He was Minister of Health during the government administration of Martín Torrijos (2004-2009). In the next elections, Torrijos aspires to return to the Palacio de las Garzas but from the ranks of the Popular Party and not the PRD, a group founded by Omar Torrijos, his father.
The political event took place at the Playa Bonita hotel (Veracruz), where the Molirena board of directors, an allied party of the PRD, also met in parallel.
In his speech, Carrizo once again mentioned the management of Laurentino Cortizo’s government in managing the covid-19 pandemic. He reiterated to the mayors and representatives that they have his full support and then praised the strength between the PRD and Molirena. He called her “the greatest political force in the country.”
“With organization and discipline we will guarantee victory in the elections of May 5, 2024,” said Carrizo. He promised that he would govern with the fear of God and assured that he is convinced that double standards are the worst corruption.
De Alleyne, the official presidential candidate, said that he was a brave, committed, Afro-descendant person, a democratic revolutionary and a proven militant.
The PRD meeting was packed with public servants. Ministers, mayors, directors of entities, mayors and representatives traveled to the hotel located in Veracruz to participate in the event, which some classified as transcendental and historic.
The board meeting was behind closed doors. Hermeticism reigned. No one was allowed to have a cell phone at the event. They even took them away from the delegates of the Electoral Tribunal. The idea was to not leak what the directors and members of the powerful National Executive Committee agreed to. Even so, the news that Alleyne would accompany Carrizo in his political project broke before 1:00 p.m.
According to what this media learned, there were long faces at the director’s meeting. They are not convinced by Alleyne’s arrival in his party’s presidential campaign. What they did consider was the possibility of injecting resources.
Several deputies of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), including the president of the Government Commission of the National Assembly, Leandro Ávila , referred today to the controversial proposal to reform the Electoral Code.
This is the draft law 115 presented last Wednesday by the PRD deputy, Ricardo Torres , which proposes that party candidates, apart from competing for the quotient, half quotient and remainder, on their group’s ballot, can also choose for the residue within the allied collective that nominates them.
In the words of Ávila, starting this Monday he will begin to read this proposal and it would be discussed as long as it is a suitable proposal for the country and that it can be reviewed. “Right now I am not committed to that proposal,” he said.
As will be remembered, the Government Commission will be responsible for discussing the future of this draft law, which is why Ávila believes that the document must be very well analyzed. Precisely, this weekend the presiding judge of the Electoral Court, Alfredo Juncá, considered that it is not advisable to reform the rule, when there are eight months left until the elections of May 5, 2024.
“Modifying the Electoral Code, unless there is a force majeure reason, is not recommended at this point, because the process has already begun (…) It began with rules that all parties and candidates are clear about,” argued Judge Juncá .
For two years they held multiple public and private meetings, agreements and negotiations. This Saturday, September 16, after the meetings of their respective directorates, the Democratic Change (CD) and Panameñista parties sealed their union and announced what would now be the first list for the May 2024 elections.
Rómulo Roux will be the presidential candidate. José Isabel Blandón will accompany him as a candidate for the vice presidency. Both Roux and Blandón preside over the boards of directors of their respective parties, CD and Panameñista, and were presidential candidates in 2019: Roux came second and Blandón came fourth. The last time these parties (irreconcilable for many years) went to the polls together was in 2009 and won.
Yesterday’s proclamation took place in a simple ceremony in the Topacio room of the El Panamá hotel. The news was announced after 61 of the 89 members of CD’s board of directors approved the union, and 35 of the 41 directors of Panameñista also approved it.
“The Panameñista Party today has made a historic decision, thinking about the best interests of the country (…) thinking about a better Panama, thinking that all Panamanians deserve something good.
What happens to the trash after it leaves our home and how does this impact the environment? Reports from the Urban and Home Sewage Authority (AAUD) indicate that most of the domestic waste that reaches the Cerro Patacón landfill is organic, plastic and cardboard. Everything mixed up, even glass, textiles and metals with a high contamination power.
Melitza Tristán, director of Environmental Culture of the Ministry of the Environment (MiAmbiente), says that although environmental awareness has grown a lot in Panama, in something as fundamental as the treatment of garbage, there is little culture of recycling, despite the extensive narrative on the subject and the various public and private campaigns on its importance.
His perspective is shared by the head of MiAmbiente’s Environmental Education Department, Martín Testa, who estimates that 60% of the material that reaches Cerro Patacón could be composted and used, for example, as fertilizer. But that is not done.
A report from the Environmental Unit of the AAUD that analyzes the waste from domestic activity that reaches Cerro Patacón, indicates that organic waste represents 29.7% of everything that reaches this landfill, which is the main one in the capital. They are followed by plastics (18.8%), cardboard (15.5%), cellulose (9%), textiles (5.9%) and metals (4.1%), among others.
Cerro Patacón is a public health, environmental and political problem due to its management. In fact, on April 11, 2023, the Cabinet Council declared an “environmental emergency” in the landfill after several fires, complaints of contamination and the difficult management of the place by the company that until then had the concession for the site.
Institutions such as the AAUD, MiAmbiente and the Ministry of Health are now involved in its management, trying to comply with the Cabinet order to “mitigate and/or restore the environmental disaster.”
“Tons of all types of waste, which include metals, produce something called leachate, which ends up in the land and water,” explained Mariella Gnazzo, administrative director of Recicla Panamá, one of the few companies that recycles electronic equipment in the country. . From a broken cell phone to a refrigerator, they are manually disassembled after sorting, weighed and can be sold to other companies that reuse them.
These heavy metals contain contaminants such as lead and mercury. And if we take into account that around 5% of what reaches Cerro Patacón are metals and electrical and electronic devices (WEEE), we would be talking about a little more than 25 thousand tons per year.
Tristán says that in Panama there is a shortage of recyclers and the few places to take this type of waste are insufficient. This can be seen in parks that have recycling containers: they are usually overflowing and the material is mixed.
All land located within our country, as well as permanent improvements built on these lands, are subject to the property tax (IBI); whether or not they have a property title, registered in the Public Registry.
The IBI taxes the property, whoever the owner or user is, and will have preference over any other lien that weighs on said property.
The IBI corresponding to a year may be paid in three installments, the first no later than April 30, the second no later than August 31 and the third no later than December 31. When the IBI does not exceed ten dollars, the payment will be made in a single item and will be made no later than December 31 of each year. Late payment of the indicated installments will generate the interest established by Law and a 10% surcharge.
The Law grants a discount of 10% of the IBI, when payment of the entire annual tax is made no later than the last day of April of the fiscal year. As a tax relief measure following the pandemic caused by Covid-19, during the years 2023 and 2024, a discount of 15% of the IBI is granted to the natural or legal taxpayer, no later than the last day of April 2023 and 2024. respectively, make the payment of the entire IBI for those years.
The Tax Code also indicates some situations of cooperation between institutions that are mandatory. They are established in articles 793, 794 and 795 of the Tax Code:
The officials in charge of issuing construction permits (municipal engineers) are required to send monthly to the National Land Administration Authority (Anati) and the General Directorate of Revenue (DGI) a list of the permits granted and the corresponding data. .
Also that the Public Registry of Panama, in coordination with the DGI and Anati, is obliged to regulate, structure, share and manage its respective computer database, in order to guarantee the effectiveness and administration of the updated cadastral values.
Finally, Notaries Public are also obliged to send monthly to the DGI and Anati a list of all the deeds issued during the month, which refer to real estate, with an indication of the properties affected and the values assigned to them during the month. prior to writing.
The Tax Code offers the necessary tools for the formation, updating and review of the national cadastre, where State institutions are obliged to provide all necessary cooperation.