President Martinelli gave serious weight to his “soon” timetable, declaring that he and his close associate David Ochi, who will head the project, are giving themselves a deadline of 700 days in which to complete the new highway.
Of course, deadlines of public projects in Panama are proposed so that they can be broken. Still, with $114 million in government funding budgeted for the highway, it seems clear that there is some serious money to be made on the project. Both the President, as well as David Ochi, are well known to be highly motivated by money.
Given that workers on the road expansion are already actively looking for places to rent in Puerto Armuelles, it seems that Martinelli's speech was not just talk. The road expansion really does seem like it will happen "soon", even in the North American sense of that word.
As a sidebar to this story, for sometime there has been talk of President Martinelli’s friend Mr. Ochi quietly taking over the leases on many hectares of the former Chiquita Banana plantation around Puerto Armuelles. With the defunct banana workers’ syndicate, Coosemupar, safely out of the way, it was just a matter of time before a major Panamanian player found a way to wiggle into a position of control of the Banana Plantations.
What does this mean for Puerto Armuelles? Plenty.
After the departure of Chiquita Banana from Puerto, several international fruit companies, including Dole, Del Monte, and even Chiquita, have expressed interest in taking over the production and distribution of bananas from Puerto Armuelles. However, each interested party has been either given the cold shoulder by politicians, or actively scared off by threats of more labor union action.
The real problem was that there was no major Panamanian investor who stood to benefit from the renewal of Banana production in Puerto Armuelles.
Now that David Ochi, and most likely, President Martinelli himself, stand to make millions of dollars from the sale or lease of the banana plantations, as well as making tens of millions of dollars on the construction of the new Puerto Armuelles/Paso Canoas highway, the project is a “definite”.
Better still, if the president and his associate David Ochi want to get funding under his own administration, then they will have to get started right away.
Meanwhile, gringo retirees continue to trickle into Puerto Armuelles, at an increasing rate every year. It’s not a flood yet, but it seems clear that the Ex-pats are in Puerto Armuelles to stay. The new highway is sure to draw more attention to Puerto Armuelles from retirees, as well as foreign investors.
