By Valentine Hilaire
(Reuters) -Panama’s economy and finance minister on Friday reiterated support for a contract allowing the local unit of Canada’s First Quantum to operate a major copper mine despite growing protests demanding its cancellation.
“Panama is a mining country,” Hector Alexander told Reuters, adding that without the mine, its 2023 economic growth would stand at 1% and not the 6% the government is estimating.
Last week, lawmakers gave final approval for an extended concession covering the Cobre Panama mine, which accounts for nearly 5% of Panama’s economic activity.
Alexander’s comments are the first by a senior member of the government since a speech on Tuesday by President Laurentino Cortizo backing the contract, which guarantees a minimum annual income of $375 million to the government.
Since then, protesters concerned about the mine’s environmental impact have continued to march in the thousands demanding its withdrawal, an outburst of public revolt seldom seen in the Central American nation of around 4 million people.
Panama’s top court agreed on Friday to consider a second lawsuit challenging the contract, in addition to one accepted on Thursday.
The protests, together with related road blockades in different parts of the country, led education authorities to suspend classes at Panamanian schools starting this past Monday.
Edison Broce, a lawmaker who voted against the contract and has been participating in the protests, told Reuters there will be a “punitive” vote in the upcoming 2024 elections, as the growing number of people demonstrating the contract show the outrage against how things have been handled.
Broce said he will present a legal initiative to Congress seeking to overturn the contract, and urged authorities to heed the protesters.
(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Christian Plumb and Marguerita Choy)
