The general secretary of the National Land Administration Authority (ANATI), Víctor Vergara, explained that the deputy Yanibel Ábrego did not buy 18.4 hectares in the village of Cirí Grande, Capira district, from the State but from a private citizen. What ANATI did, Vergara added, was the titling process, after the purchase-sale carried out between two individuals, for which it charged $120.00, the official said in an interview with journalist Álvaro Alvarado.

“Did deputy Yanibel Ábrego buy this land from an individual or from ANATI?” journalist Álvaro Álvarado asked the secretary general of that entity, in an interview that the communicator broadcast on his social networks. “ANATI does not own land, Mr. Álvaro, although ANATI administers national land, possession of the land is in the hands of the Panamanian citizen,” replied Víctor Vergara.

The ANATI general secretary reiterated that the 18.1 hectares titled in the name of deputy Yanibel Ábrego in Cirí Grande were not state owned, but were in the possession of a citizen.

“Specifically, what ANATI grants is a property title, not the assignment of a piece of land, the land is already in the possession of Panamanians,” the ANATI general secretary stressed to journalist Alvarado.

Similarly, the official indicated that the 18.4-hectare polygon in the town of Cirí Grande, which was in the possession of a citizen, who sold that property to the deputy Yanibel Ábrego, was part of a “cadastral sweep” that the ANATI, as part of the Special Mass Titling Law of 2006. This law establishes that ANATI will charge 6 dollars for the titling process for each hectare, said the general secretary of ANATI.

In this regard, Deputy Yanibel Ábrego declared that “more than 10 years ago I bought the possessory rights of the aforementioned farms from a natural person. What is done at ANATI is the recognition of that right through the registration of the property title in a process that began in 2012 and ended in 2022.”

“The right of possession is a form of property, established in our legal system, fully legal and can be sold and is what has happened in a commercial transaction between individuals,” said Deputy Ábrego.