Draft bill 203.

Summary.

The draft bill proposes conditions, requirements, and procedures for temporarily installing and supplying drinking water, electricity, and internet service in special areas that lack those services. It covers people who have lived in those communities for more than 5 years while the area's legal or housing situation is resolved. Its provisions would apply directly and immediately upon promulgation; the absence of Executive Branch regulations could not be invoked to refuse or delay a supply contract.

The proposed rules would apply throughout Panama and, among applicants, exclusively to natural persons who actually occupy a dwelling in a special area for more than 5 years. They would bind the public water utility, rural water supply boards, electricity concessionaires and distributors, internet service providers, and telecommunications companies. The bill names Naturgy and ENSA among the electricity distributors.

The bill designates its provisions as matters of public order and social interest, gives them priority over concession contracts and providers' internal regulations and service manuals, and makes the rights it establishes nonwaivable. The competent authority could suspend or withdraw temporary service following an eviction or a government relocation, or when the special area's technical and legal conditions require it. Loss of service in those circumstances would carry no right to compensation. Installation of a service would not establish that the user had obtained title to the property.

For contracts covering any of the three services, the bill requires identical conditions regardless of geography, socioeconomic circumstances, or the legal status of the land. An application in a special area would require a copy of an identity card or valid immigration document; residence certificates from the relevant Community Board (Junta Comunal) and justice of the peace of the relevant corregimiento (district), each confirming five (5) years of residence on the lot or in the dwelling; and proof that the applicant has neither property registered in their name with the Public Registry nor other meters for these services in their name in the Republic of Panama. The bill provides for mandatory approval of an application supported by these documents.

For refusal or delay, the bill refers installation times to Law No. 6 of 1997, consolidated by Law No. 194 of 2020, and provides for the expedited procedure regulated by the National Public Services Authority (ASEP). It would repeal any conflicting rule or internal regulation and take effect on the day after promulgation. Its provisions concern the National Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (Instituto de Acueductos y Alcantarillados Nacionales), the Community Board (Junta Comunal), the Rural Aqueduct Administrative Boards (Juntas Administrativas de Acueductos Rurales), and ASEP, as well as the drinking water, electricity distribution, and telecommunications sectors and communities in special areas.