Panama goes to polls on upgrade for canalPANAMA CITY: Voters were expected Sunday to appro

Panama goes to polls on upgrade for canal

PANAMA CITY: Voters were expected Sunday to approve the largest modernization project in the 92-year history of the Panama Canal, a $5.25 billion plan to expand the waterway to allow for larger ships while alleviating traffic problems.

The government of President Martín Torrijos has billed the referendum as historic, saying the work would double the capacity of a canal already on pace to generate about $1.4 billion in revenue this year. Critics claim the expansion would benefit the canal&39;s customers more than Panamanians, and worry that costs could balloon, forcing this debt- ridden country to borrow even more.

The project would build a third set of locks on the Pacific and Atlantic ends of the canal by 2015, allowing it to handle modern container ships, cruise liners and tankers too large for its locks, which are 33 meters, or 108 feet, wide.

The Panama Canal Authority, the autonomous government agency that runs the canal, says the project would be paid for by increasing tolls and would generate $6 billion in revenue by 2025.

There is nothing Panamanians are more passionate about than the canal.

"It&39;s incomparable in the hemisphere," said Samuel Lewis Navarro, the country&39;s vice president and foreign secretary. "It&39;s in our heart, part of our soul."

Public opinion polls indicate that the plan would be approved overwhelmingly. Green and white signs throughout the country read "Yes for our children," while tens of thousands of billboards and bumper stickers trumpet new jobs.

"The canal needs you," television and radio ads implore.

"It will mean more boats, and that means more jobs," said Damasco Polanco, who was herding cows on horseback in Nuevo Provedencia, on the banks of Lake Gatún, an artificial reservoir that supplies water to the canal.

The canal employs 8,000 workers and the expansion is expected to generate as many as 40,000 new jobs. Unemployment in Panama is 9.5 percent, and 40 percent of the country lives in poverty.

But critics fear that the expansion could cost nearly double the government&39;s estimate, as well as stoke corruption and uncontrolled debt.

"The poor continue to suffer while the rich get richer," said José Felix Castillo, 62, a high school teacher who was one of about 3,000 supporters who took to Panama City&39;s streets to protest the measure on Friday.

Lewis Navarro noted that a portion of the revenue generated by each ton of cargo that passes through the waterway goes to education and social programs.

"We aren&39;t talking about 40 percent poverty as a consequence of the canal," he said. "It&39;s exactly the opposite."