According to the official note from the Cabinet, the President of the Republic, Laurentino Cortizo, instructed the head of Commerce and Industries, Federico Alfaro, to resume this pact and evaluate modifications with the subsidiary of the Canadian transnational First Quantum, also taking into account the considerations arising from citizen consultations.
“The measure obeys the style of the National Government, which is open-door and listens to all sectors,” the statement indicates.
After addressing citizens’ concerns about the contract, in the coming days the Executive will work together with the Minera Panamá company to agree on the wordings that resolve the indicated points, the report adds.
For months, popular and environmental organizations have been demonstrating in the streets against this contract that harms national sovereignty, according to spokespersons for these groups.
In statements to Prensa Latina, the general secretary of the Single National Union of Construction and Similar Industry Workers (Suntracs), Saúl Méndez, explained that the resolution issued by the deputies when returning that text to the Executive is illegal, because its jurisdiction It only lies in approving or rejecting it.
Méndez indicated that the agreement only points out four points about violations of that text, compared to a hundred irregularities of a content that allows damage to nature and human health by the company that exploits copper in the town of Donoso, Colón.
Among these points, the deputies only point out regarding the operations that the concession of airspace be reviewed, the possibility of expropriating land, the tax limits and that it be eliminated as a Framework law, he specified.
The parliamentarians, he added, even violate their own rules by not recognizing that this contract was classified as unconstitutional in 2017 by the Supreme Court of Justice.
This Tuesday, members of Suntracs blocked highways and road sections in several provinces of the Isthmus country such as Darién, Coclé, Panamá Norte, Chiriquí and Colón, among others.
The day of national struggle of the humble, honest and hard-working people will continue in defense of the Homeland and the environment; and against Minera Panamá, the Government’s lackeys and unscrupulous businessmen, Méndez remarked.
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