‘Papers’ fallout: Panama pushes for transparency
April 7, 2016, 9:14 am

Valera, seen here with Argentine Vice-President Gabriela Michetti, has pledged to strengthen transparency in the wake of the Panama Papers [Xinhua]

With the spotlight – and scrutiny – now on Panama, President Juan Carlos Varela said that he will work with the local business community to safeguard the image of the country.

Since the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca was hacked and some 11.5 million documents made public on the internet, financial and legal experts have been holding emergency meetings with the government.

In the past week, international media has grilled Panama as a haven for money laundering.

The New York Times described the Mossack Fonseca law firm “a powerhouse of secretive offshore banking for the elite” with hints of relations to the Nazis.

Ramon Fonseca, one of the co-founders, has lashed out at the media and specified that his firm was hacked by servers outside the country, and that the information now made public was illegally acquired and not a leak.

Many public and prominent figures in most G20 countries have been named in the Panama Papers, with some reportedly engaged in creating offshore accounts or companies to allegedly launder money and/or evade taxes.

As global powers launched their own investigations into their public figures named in the Papers, Valera has said that his government would work to enhance transparency of fiscal transactions in and out of the country.

“[The] Panamanian government, via our foreign ministry, will create an independent commission of domestic and international experts” to assess financial and legal practices in the country, Valera said.

In the biggest fallout as a result of revelations made in the Panama Papers, David Gunnlaugsson resigned as prime minister of Iceland on Tuesday after the documents alleged that his wife was running an offshore company involved in the country’s failed banking crisis of 2008.

The government replaced him with Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson and called for early elections next fall in a bid to assuage public anger.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies