Panama approves canal expansion
Panama voted to expand the Panama canal.
Panamanians on Sunday overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to modernize the country’s aging canal, won over by government arguments that the $5.25 billion project would generate jobs and keep the canal relevant for future generations.
The overhaul, to begin next year, will double the canal’s capacity by adding a third set of locks that are 40 percent longer and 60 percent wider than the current ones. Constructed by the United States in 1914, the canal these days is congested and too small to handle the world’s largest container vessels and tankers.
Opposition to the project was vigorous as skeptics questioned the government’s cost estimates and raised fears that corruption would doom the project.
But the government’s campaign for the expansion, the largest modernization of the canal in its history, was even more intense. Officials portrayed a “sí” vote as a vote for the children of Panama. Without an expanded canal, officials predicted, shipping traffic would find other routes and Panama’s growing economy would dry up.
The canal, 50 miles long, employs 8,000 Panamanians and is a source of national pride, as well as foreign currency. But even as skyscrapers go up at a furious pace in a downtown Panama City that has hints of Miami, 40 percent of the country’s three million residents live in poverty.
All the same, preliminary results gave the expansion plan just shy of 80 percent support, far more than the simple majority required. A referendum is required for major changes to the canal, a provision of the law meant to give the people ownership of a resource that had long been in the hands of foreigners. Still, most voters stayed away from the polls Sunday, with turnout estimated at about 40 percent.
The approval is a victory for the Torrijos administration, which staked its reputation on the project. The current president’s father, Gen. Omar Torrijos, negotiated in the 1970’s for the United States to hand over the canal to the Panamanians. The canal changed hands in 1999.
The government backed off an earlier overhaul plan that would have displaced thousands of Panamanians by expanding the lake used to raise and lower ships as they navigate between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. No residents will be displaced under the current proposal, officials said.
The expansion, which will be financed by loans and higher fees charged to shippers, is scheduled to be completed in 2014. Canal officials predict that a decade afterward the expanded canal will generate $6 billion a year, far more than the $1.4 billion expected this year.
nytimes
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