Draft bill 59.

Summary.

The draft bill would establish permanent financing for prevention programs, projects, and activities carried out by the Ministry of Public Security (Ministerio de Seguridad Pública) through its Directorate of Prevention and Citizen Security (Dirección de Prevención y Seguridad Ciudadana), in coordination with other state institutions. It defines citizen security, preventive programs, violence prevention, and institutional management revenue. Its areas of prevention include peaceful coexistence, a culture of peace and legality, gang involvement, drug use, and protection of children, adolescents, and vulnerable groups.

It creates the National Fund for Violence Prevention and Citizen Security (Fondo Nacional para la Prevención de las Violencias y la Seguridad Ciudadana) solely to finance citizen security and prevention plans, strategies, programs, projects, and activities. Its resources would retain their status as public funds. Sources could include institutional management revenue lawfully allocated to the Fund and free of incompatible earmarks, international technical cooperation, donations from lawful sources, investment returns, and other legally allocated contributions. Receipt, recording, and management of the resources would follow budget, accounting, and treasury rules, including the General State Budget Law (Ley de Presupuesto General del Estado) where applicable.

The Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas) would establish an Administration and Investment Trust to manage, invest, safeguard, and disburse the Fund’s resources. Its agreement would have to identify each financing source, trace the movement of resources, control disbursements, and provide for accountability. The trust arrangement would preserve the registration, consolidation, audit, and oversight requirements applicable to public funds.

The bill creates the Board of Directors of the National Fund for Violence Prevention and Citizen Security (Junta Directiva del Fondo Nacional para la Prevención de las Violencias y la Seguridad Ciudadana). It would include representatives of the ministries responsible for public security, social development, education, economy and finance, and culture, along with the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Panama and organized civil society. The Board would approve annual plans, investment priorities, and reports, evaluate outcomes, and monitor financial execution. It would meet ordinarily once every three months, decide by a simple majority of members present, and maintain physical and digital records of its minutes and agreements.

The Fund would finance community policing services; prevention of youth violence, gang activity, recruitment of young people at risk, and psychotropic substance use; sports, cultural, and educational activities; recovery of public spaces; peaceful coexistence; and community policing. It could not pay permanent salaries or ordinary operating expenses, apart from strictly necessary and substantiated trust and financial administration costs. The Ministry of Public Security would prepare an Annual Preventive Investment Plan prioritizing communities by levels of violence, crime, and social vulnerability, using technical criteria, available statistics, and verifiable indicators.

The Ministry would publish an annual account of resources, sources and returns, funded programs, beneficiary communities, amounts spent, results, and progress under the Plan. The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) would audit the Fund and trust. In the Republic of Panama (República de Panamá), mandatory public law rules governing these resources would prevail over conflicting trust terms. The Executive Branch (Órgano Ejecutivo) would issue implementing regulations within six months after promulgation, without creating unauthorized earmarks of public revenue. The proposed law would take effect in the next fiscal period following promulgation in the Official Gazette. These provisions concern the named public institutions and could affect beneficiary communities, policing services, social organizations, the education and cultural sectors, and the business sector represented on the Board.