An exhaustive new analysis reveals that Panama has lost more than five billion dollars in public funds to corruption over the past twenty years. The investigation, which compiled 90 emblematic cases, exposes a pattern of institutional fragility that has allowed graft to flourish across multiple administrations. This massive financial hemorrhage has directly impacted public services and infrastructure, contributing to systemic exclusion and tragic outcomes in the nation’s poorest regions.
The research was conducted with support from the Foundation for the Development of Citizen Liberty, the Panamanian chapter of Transparency International. It draws on official data from the Public Ministry, the Judiciary, the Comptroller General’s office, and extensive journalistic archives. The findings point to a sustained crisis where the misuse of entrusted power for private benefit has become endemic, draining resources meant for national development.
“Corruption is the misuse of entrusted power to obtain private benefits,” this investigation notes, citing the definition used by Transparency International. [Translated from Spanish]
The staggering total of $5.104 billion represents funds that vanished from state coffers between 2004 and 2024. This figure is not merely an abstract accounting loss. It translates into missing schools, crumbling roads, and a lack of basic services that has had fatal consequences for vulnerable citizens.
The Human Cost of Stolen Funds
While the financial totals are numbing, the real-world impact of this diverted wealth is measured in lives. A recent report titled “Mortal Education” highlighted a grim correlation. Between 55 and 70 people, mostly children and adolescents, have died over the last two decades in the Ngäbe-Buglé Comarca while crossing rivers on their way to or from school.
The report, presented to the National Assembly by the Foundation for the Sustainable Development of Panama and United Youth for Education, identifies the “systemic exclusion of indigenous peoples from public investment” as a key underlying factor. These deaths occur in a context of extreme poverty, geographic isolation, and a profound absence of basic services. This reality is directly tied to the diversion of public money, a symptom of what the analysis calls an “exclusive development model” coexisting with systematic corruption.
Landmark Cases Dominate the Financial Toll
The inventory of 90 cases shows that two scandals alone account for the majority of the estimated losses. The most financially damaging episode in Panama’s recent history remains the Odebrecht scandal. Investigations indicate that cost overruns associated with works executed by the Brazilian construction giant in Panama between 2006 and 2019 exceed two billion dollars.
This represents the largest sum in modifications or adjustments to public works the country has ever seen. The second major case involves the Panama Ports Company (PPC), which operates the Cristóbal and Balboa ports at the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Panama Canal. Following extensive audits, the Comptroller General concluded the state suffered damages surpassing $1.2 billion due to administrative decisions and contractual modifications unfavorable to the national interest related to a 1997 concession.
These two mega-cases set a tone of impunity. The remaining 88 processes in the inventory add approximately $1.5 billion in damages to the state. They include social programs used as tools for political patronage, poorly executed highways, unjustified advance payments, inflated institutional purchases, and a long chain of sustained corrupt acts.
A Persistent Pattern Across Administrations
The bulk of the documented cases, 57 in total, correspond to the 2009-2014 administration. These were selected for their representativeness and the availability of official damage assessments. The subsequent 2019-2024 period also left a significant number of corruption cases, though most lack a precise official calculation of patrimonial injury.
That precise task falls to the Comptroller’s office. Its work often depends on investigations by prosecutors, which frequently face major limitations in resources and political will. This lack of conclusive accounting in recent cases suggests the full scale of losses may be even greater than currently known. The pattern reveals that no single administration has been immune, with each leaving a trail of costly scandals.
“The final balance of this work reveals that in the last 21 years an estimated $5,104 million disappeared from the state’s coffers,” the investigation states. It notes this amount not only impacts public finances but exposes an institutional fragility that the corrupt have exploited for two decades without interruption. [Translated from Spanish]
The continuity of graft points to deep-seated weaknesses in Panama’s oversight and judicial institutions. Systems designed to check power and ensure transparent use of funds have repeatedly failed. Corrupt actors have navigated around them with alarming consistency, treating public money as a private slush fund for political and personal gain.
Institutional Fragility and the Path Forward
The report’s underlying conclusion is that the astronomical financial loss is a symptom, not the disease. The core illness is institutional fragility. Anti-corruption bodies remain underfunded and vulnerable to political pressure. Legal frameworks have loopholes. And a culture of impunity has taken root, allowing new scandals to erupt before old ones are fully resolved.
For ordinary Panamanians, the cost is paid daily. It is paid in longer commutes on substandard roads, in overcrowded classrooms, and in understaffed clinics. It is paid, most tragically, in the lives of children in indigenous territories who lack safe bridges over rivers. The lost five billion dollars could have transformed the country’s infrastructure and social services. Instead, it has lined pockets and fueled public cynicism.
Addressing this crisis requires more than prosecuting individual cases. The Government of Panama faces a monumental task in rebuilding trust. Analysts argue this demands a comprehensive overhaul of procurement processes, a genuine strengthening of the Comptroller’s office and Public Ministry, and robust protections for whistleblowers. Civil society groups emphasize that transparency must move from a slogan to a non-negotiable practice in every state contract and transaction.
The two-decade timeline of the study shows corruption is not a temporary anomaly but a entrenched feature of the system. Reversing it will be the work of a generation. The first step, however, is a full and honest accounting of what has been lost. This investigation provides a stark, painful measure of that price. The true test now is whether this accounting will finally spur the systemic change needed to ensure such a tally is never repeated.