The budget was published today, but the Legislative won’t analyze it until next week (hopefully)

PANAMA - In Brief 01 Aug 2025 by Marco Fernandez

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The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) presented its draft of the 2026 General State Budget to the plenary of the National Assembly last Wednesday. However, legislative committees have not yet been formed. This delay is due to internal disputes among political parties over control of key committees—particularly the Budget Committee, which has traditionally been chaired by the PRD, an outcome unlikely under the current legislative session that began on July 1. The usual process for budget approval is for it to go through the Assembly’s Budget Committee, but this body has yet to be established due to ongoing political jockeying among parties to control not only this committee, but others as well. In an unusual move, the new President of the Assembly, Jorge Herrera, criticized his colleagues for not acting in accordance with the rules and has called a plenary session for next Monday to vote on the composition of all committees. We expect this plenary debate to take several days. As a result, the National Budget—required to pass through the Budget Committee before returning to the plenary—will likely take longer than usual to progress. While it was customary for committee formation to take only a few days, the legislative process has now been stalled for over a month, delaying more than sixty bills that were already under discussion. A key clarification when analyzing the budget is that media headlines usually reference the total public sector budget, projected at US$34.9 billion for 2026. This figure includes state-owned banks and firms outside the NFPS (Banco Nacional de Panamá, Caja de Ahorros, Tocumen Airport, the National Highway Company, and the Electric Transmiss...