Recovering MOP Beams, The Urgent Mission Of The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office

(MENAFN- Newsroom Panama) After almost a week of investigations and searches in different parts of the country, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has so far recovered at least 60 of the steel beams reported missing from a warehouse of the Ministry of Public Works (MOP), located in Farfán, Arraiján district. Investigations were also carried out in the communal councils of Belisario Porras, in San Miguelito; and in Las Cumbres, in the district of Panama. However, the prosecutor's office did not specify the number of beams recovered at these sites.

Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office personnel, with the support of the National Police, located another nine H-beams during investigations carried out in Santa Fe, province of Veraguas.
The beams were found in a vacant lot next to the road.
Prosecutors are now checking to see if these beams are part of the batch of 600 that the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) reported missing.
To date, authorities have recovered 69 beams that are presumed to belong to the batch stolen from a MOP warehouse located in Farfán, Arraiján.
The day before, Tuesday, the prosecutor's office carried out raids in the communal councils of Belisario Porras and Las Cumbres, where beams suspected to be part of those stolen were also found.
In addition, six other beams were recovered in the 24 de Diciembre district.
The prosecutor's office also conducted an investigation at the MOP offices to obtain information on the acquisition of the beams and determine whether they were all intended for repairs to the Bridge of the Americas.

The beams that are in Las Cumbres were 'donated' by the MOP to the communal council.
The
three steel beams
that appeared in
Las Cumbres
were donated to the community council of that district by the Ministry of Public Works (MOP).
Rafael Sabonge, the former MOP minister, has said that he does not know what happened to the 600 beams that were to be used in the Bridge of the Americas; that they had been“stolen.” But it was under his administration that the Las Cumbres community council received three beams to build a pedestrian and vehicular bridge in the
Unión Veragüense community. The request, in writing, was submitted on May 27 by re-elected representative
Zaidy Quintero. Quintero requested support from the MOP to acquire the materials that would be used in the construction of the bridge: three 21-inch, 62-pound beams and nine 15 x 40 Channels. The official attached a plan of the work.
The note was addressed to
Eduardo Chambonnet, the then regional director of the MOP in North Panama.
The representative said that shortly after, on June 7, she received the three beams. They had the required measurements to carry out the work. Before that, the“regional director went to see where we were going to use them.”
But the work did not move forward due to a lack of funds to complete it. They were managing those resources when they received a visit from agents of the
National Police and personnel from the Public Prosecutor's Office
last Sunday, as part of an investigation opened for alleged embezzlement.
Quintero says that, until that day, he had no idea that the beams that were in the courtyard of his community council were the ones that had been stolen from the MOP warehouse in
Farfán.
“We realized this now,” he said.
He insists that the beams that were given to him by MOP are in the communal council,“not on private land.”
Authorities warned the community council officials that they could not“touch” the beams.
And there they are, waiting for someone to dispose of them.
Quintero said he did not know if the beams that have appeared in other communal councils were also“donated” by the MOP.

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