BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – The committee set up to investigate lack of transparency in Panama’s financial system itself lacks transparency, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told Reuters yesterday after resigning from the “Panama Papers” commission.
The leak in April of more than 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, dubbed the “Panama Papers”, detailed financial information from offshore accounts and potential tax evasion by the rich and powerful.
Stiglitz and Swiss anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth joined a seven-member commission tasked with probing Panama’s notoriously opaque financial system, but they say they found the government unwilling to back an open investigation.
Both quit the group yesterday after they say Panama refused to guarantee the committee’s report would be made public.
“I thought the government was more committed, but obviously they’re not,” Stiglitz said. “It’s amazing how they tried to undermine us.”
A spokeswoman for Panama’s government did not immediately comment on the statement, but added that it would issue a response later.
Panama’s President Juan Carlos Varela said in April that the independent commission would review the country’s financial and legal practices.
In its first full meeting of the investigative committee in New York on June 4 and 5, there was consensus that the government of Panama needed to commit to making the final report public, whatever its findings, Stiglitz and Pieth said.
But they said they got a letter from the government last week backing off from its commitment to making the committee’s finding public.
“We can only infer that the government is facing pressure from those who are making profits from the current non-transparent financial system in Panama,” Stiglitz said.
