In today's DR1 news we see a manifest example of corruption at the highest level of two governments and industry over the ridiculous purchase by the DR government of the Super Tucano aircraft. It would be a joke if this were not so sad:
The high cost of the Tucanos
A report in Diario Libre on Wednesday 7 September 2016 estimates that the cost of purchasing eight Tucano aircraft purchased by the Leonel Fernandez administration in 2009 was equivalent to 60% of the budget the government had assigned to the National Drug Control Agency over the previous nine years. While the government had assigned RD$5.4 billion to the agency, the airplanes cost US$93.6 million, which at the time was equivalent to RD$3.2 billion (at an exchange rate of RD$34.5 to US$1).
At the time, former attorney general Francisco Dominguez Brito (now the Minister of Environment) had said that a single flight hour was going to cost more than the fuel spent on combating drug trafficking in the Cibao region in the entire month of January.
In the Diario Libre interview, former Police colonel Juan Tom?s Taveras says the purchase of the Tucanos was an error. He said the aircraft would only be effective if their purchase was matched with a good radar system that allows the authorities to identify illicit trafficking operations in good time. ?What?s the point of these planes if the radars are not working? All that money was invested in attacking unauthorized flights when there was no way of detecting them,? he stated.
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/...dncd-JI4875803
The high cost of the Tucanos
A report in Diario Libre on Wednesday 7 September 2016 estimates that the cost of purchasing eight Tucano aircraft purchased by the Leonel Fernandez administration in 2009 was equivalent to 60% of the budget the government had assigned to the National Drug Control Agency over the previous nine years. While the government had assigned RD$5.4 billion to the agency, the airplanes cost US$93.6 million, which at the time was equivalent to RD$3.2 billion (at an exchange rate of RD$34.5 to US$1).
At the time, former attorney general Francisco Dominguez Brito (now the Minister of Environment) had said that a single flight hour was going to cost more than the fuel spent on combating drug trafficking in the Cibao region in the entire month of January.
In the Diario Libre interview, former Police colonel Juan Tom?s Taveras says the purchase of the Tucanos was an error. He said the aircraft would only be effective if their purchase was matched with a good radar system that allows the authorities to identify illicit trafficking operations in good time. ?What?s the point of these planes if the radars are not working? All that money was invested in attacking unauthorized flights when there was no way of detecting them,? he stated.
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/...dncd-JI4875803