PANAMA CITY- It was supposed to be a grand celebration of the engineering triumph that forged a nation.
Instead, the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal’s opening Friday is being marred by doubts about the country’s ability to harness the full benefits of a multibillion-dollar expansion beset by cost overruns, strikes and the threat of competition from rival projects.
The latest setback in the canal’s expansion came in May, when about 5,000 laborers walked off the job for two weeks as part of a strike over wages by construction workers nationwide. That followed a two-week stoppage in February in a dispute over $1.6 billion in extra costs between the canal’s administrator and the European contractor building a third new set of locks.
Because of the interruptions and overspending, the original completion date of this October has been pushed back by 14 months and analysts say more delays can’t be ruled out.
The construction of the 77-kilometer (48-mile) ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama a century ago transformed international trade, greatly reducing travel time between the Atlantic and the Pacific by eliminating the need for ships to go around the tip of South America. The construction claimed the lives of an estimated 30,000 workers, many from diseases like malaria and yellow fever.