With work commencing last month on the first line of Martinelli's flagship
US$1.6bn Panama City metro project, following the award of the contract in
December last
[RC-10-12] the
government has unveiled a US$850m plan in relation to another core plank of its
plan to turn Panama into the “Hub of the Americas" - the development of Tocumen
International Airport, the country's main airport. The plan includes, among
other provisions, the construction of a second new terminal, Muelle Sur, which
is due to start at the end of the year. The US$100m construction of the first
new terminal, Muelle Norte, which began in October 2009 and will provide an
additional 12 gates, is expected to be ready this year. This aims to double the
passenger capacity (currently five million a year), making Tocumen, already the
busiest in Central America, a rival to Miami as the regional transport hub. Like
the Panama Canal, the expansion of which is also key to the government's
infrastructure plan, Tocumen Airport, received some unfortunate publicity as a
result of the recent WikiLeaks. A cable dated 18 December 2009 raised concerns
about the airport's security, suggesting it had become a hub of illegal money
and drug smuggling. As well as implicating
Martinelli's cousin, Ramón, who
has been accused of money laundering for Mexico's Beltrán Leyva drug gang, the
cable raises questions over members of the Tocumen board of directors (the
airport is run by Tocumen SA, a state-owned corporation). These include Deputy
Finance Minister Frank de Lima and Tourism Minister Salomón Shamah; the latter,
then US Ambassador Barbara Stephenson noted, is “suspected of links to drug
traffickers".
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