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DR1 takes a break DR1 Daily News will not be published next Monday, 4 November. The day is a national holiday to commemorate Constitution Day, the date of which is actually that of Wednesday, 6 November. News from Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and Tuesday will be compiled for the Tuesday edition. This will be a long weekend for Dominicans, the last one of the year. |
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Social Security is official in Southwest 1 November marks the official start of a new social security system in the Dominican Republic. It is unlikely, however, that the system will make any difference to Dominican citizens at least at the start. The public hospitals’ doctors have not yet agreed on what they will be paid, the government has not funded the hospitals its promised portion of the added costs of expanding health services, and as of yesterday, not a single affiliation card had not been issued. It also remains to be seen who will foot the bill for the thousands of Haitians who every day require free medical assistance. The Dominican Medical Association wants the government to pay physicians RD$150 for first-time consultation with patients and RD$250 if the attending physician is a specialist. The government has offered to pay RD$100/RD$150. Bernardo Defillo confirmed that the new health system will start in the southwestern provinces of Bahoruco, Barahona, Independencia and Pedernales - the least populated regions – where some 141 Units of Primary Care (UNAPs) have been created. He says problems will be resolved step by step. For more information, see http://www.sisalril.gov.do |
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Longtime solution again applied to JCE The two leading political opposition parties accepted to instruct their deputies to return to Congress on the condition that two additional judges be appointed to the Central Electoral Board (JCE), the government body in charge of organizing the presidential elections. This is the third time a similar solution has been enacted as a consequence to opposition to judges chosen by the Senate on the alleged basis of political partiality. In 1994 the number of judges was increased from 3 to 5, and in 1997 the judges were further increased from 5 to 7, during which time the current president of the JCE, Manuel Ramon Morel Cerda, was appointed. Monsignor Agripino Nuñez in a press conference yesterday announced that the JCE would be divided into two chambers: one to handle electoral disputes and the other for purely administrative matters, with current JCE president Morel Cerda heading both chambers. The Senate and Chamber of Deputies are required to pass a bill that would incorporate this change into the Electoral Law. PRD senator Cesar Matias says that the Senate could condition this to the approval by the opposition of a change in the Constitution that would allow the 2004 president to be elected with just a simple majority. President of the Chamber of Deputies, Rafaela Alburquerque, said that her legislative house would be convened for 12 November. The Executive Branch wants congress to return to work, as they require the congressional approval of the Monetary and Financial Code, a bill that would authorize the government to make the new sovereign bond placement, an increased tax package (Paquetico) and the 2003 National Budget. Listin Diario political commentator Orlando Gil says that the solution announced yesterday is just a postponement of the conflict. He said that the judges that had been objected to by the opposing political parties and the civil society would now continue on in their posts as before, but now owing political favors to the official sector of the PRD party, and at the same time awaiting the chance to punish the opposition members that wanted them out – a contentious situation. |
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Blackouts + increasing power bills Long hours of power outages were felt yesterday in city areas, where most residents pay dearly for the service. When customers receive less hours of service, although hard to explain why, the decreased service is rarely reflected in the billing. It does mean, however, that both domestic and commercial consumers have to pay more due to the operation of their alternate power sources. Likewise, stores say sales are down as consumers shy away from shopping sprees in order to pay the significant increases in their power bills. The power outages come at a time when consumers are receiving 60-200% increases on the power bills - levels way above the government subsidies built into the monthly bills. Furthermore, the government announced this week that November invoices would come with an additional 6-15% increase to reflect increases in the price of petroleum, devaluation of the peso and inflation. Regardless, El Dia newspaper reports that last night about 500 megawatts were out of service of a total of 1,800 in the national electricity grid. This time around the power outages are being attributed to conflicts between the distributors and the generators. The generators accuse the distributors of not making their payments for the power supplied in a timely fashion. Mario Lopez, of Edenorte/Edesur, denied the responsibility of the company in the Santo Domingo blackouts. He said their debt with the Itabo power generation company stands at US$4.6-million and are in arrears of 20 days. The contractual limit is 30 days. Furthermore, he told El Dia that the Superintendence of Power is the entity that sets the prices of the service, not they. News reports indicate that in the negotiations with the power companies the government authorized a more beneficial deal for the companies than that requested by the companies themselves, which could have contributed to the increases being even higher. The government is 50% owner of the capitalized distribution and generation companies. |
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CONEP urges fiscal discipline The National Council of Business (CONEP) urged the government to commit to fiscal discipline to restore the confidence of the production sectors. Mario Ginebra, president of CONEP, backs the issuance of the sovereign bonds and the strengthening of the government’s international reserves, reduction of the debt to local banking institutions and restructuring of all foreign debt. However, Ginebra says that a necessary condition in the success of this strategy will depend on the government being more coherent in the measures taken, so as to create greater confidence in the economic outlook. A news item in the Listin Diario that analyzes the September governmental budget report shows that the government allotted 69% of its revenues to current expenditures and only 31% for capital investments. This has been a consistent pattern for the Mejia administration. The report shows the government had income of RD$5.3-billion and expenditures of RD$5.6-billion. |
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Economists call red alert on new bonds Fauntly Garrido, an economist and director of the New Horizon Corporate Group, writes in the Listin Diario and describes the government proposal for placing new sovereign bonds as “improvised” and “short-sighted”, similar to the unfortunate decree that raised road tolls by 200% to maintain Dominican highways without there being any mention in the national budget of tripling the maintenance of the highways. He questions the government’s plans to make a new placement of bonds, when the past sovereign bond issuance heated up the economy to such a point the Central Bank had to rein in the use of the funds. “If the present lack of domestic liquidity is due to the worsening of our trade exchange, what guarantees does the nation have that this new debt will be invested to create wealth, and not to purchase consumer goods - directly through government purchases or indirectly by spending in government wages - that will translate into an increased demand of imported goods?” he asks. He said these bonds would cost much more than 8%, if inflation increases beyond the 10% mark, and the peso devaluations are an additional 10%. Instead, he advocated that the government focus on implementing measures that stimulate the productive sector. |
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Former VP opposes new bonds Former Vice President Jacinto Peynado, who is the top-ranked PRSC presidential hopeful, voices his opinion in the Listin Diario against the sovereign bonds. In an article titled “The Re-Election Bonds” Peynado says that the Mejia administration cannot rightfully point to a single public infrastructure (dam, highway, irrigation channel, bridge or technical school) that was built with the US$500-million first sovereign bond placement in October 2001. He says the Autovia del Este, the Juan Bosch bridge, the expansion of the Las Americas highway, and the Santiago-Navarette highway, that the government had indicated were built with the sovereign bond money, had all been 70-80% near completion when handed over from the previous Fernandez administration and thus it is a lie to say they were built with sovereign bond money. Peynado says that the General Controller’s report on the government’s use of the money to build sidewalks, pave streets and build latrines was a failed attempt to justify the appropriation of the money held for a term of five years at 9.5% interest, while the official LIBOR rate was at 2%. Peynado cautioned that the new borrowing would drag the Dominican Republic down into a Argentinization process, referring to the dead-end street of that nation. He says the disastrous Argentinian situation was unquestionably owing to the abuses of sovereign bond capital during the second administration of Carlos Menem from 1995 to 2000. The government argues that the money to be borrowed would restructure the foreign debt. But Peynado counters by posing the question, “Who changed the structure of the Dominican foreign debt from long-term with foreign governmental and multilateral institutions to short-term?” Peynado answers that the PRD government’s borrowing frenzy from 2000-2001 is responsible for what Minister of Finance Malkum describes as loans on very onerous terms, including the 2001 sovereign bonds taken for 5 years at 9.5%. Peynado concludes that his political party, the PRSC, has a large quota of responsibility and urges party legislators to act responsibly by opposing the new measures and by voting against the new bond issuance in Congress. |
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TV darling case sent to criminal court Things have worsened for former beauty queen and TV host Laura Hernandez, of Puerto Rico, as her case and that of seven other Puerto Ricans was sent to criminal court. She had hoped to gain her freedom at the hearing yesterday in Higuey, in the province of La Altagracia. Judge Adriano Teodoro Castillo ruled that there is indeed sufficient evidence to try her in a criminal court. She and her husband Marcos Irizarry and six other persons are accused of trafficking cocaine, after they were linked to 70 kilos of the substance confiscated by the Drug Control Department in a stop en route to the tourist destination of Bavaro, where the Puerto Ricans were staying. The Listin Diario reports that local investigators on their trail had intercepted 251 telephone calls, including some in which the voice of Laura Hernandez can be heard. Because of the seriousness of the charges, Hernandez was remanded to the jail at El Seibo while she awaits her trial. There are no bail hearings available for drug-related cases, however her lawyers have said they will appeal the judge’s decision. Her husband is detained at the Higuey jail. |
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The man who knows too much Carlos Everestz Fournier was released yesterday from jail. News reports say Judge Rafael Pacheco released him on the grounds of a legal technicality, while Attorney General Virgilio Bello Rosa says that Judge Pacheco has three disciplinary actions pending against him for previous controversial rulings that favored drug dealers. Everestz has told the press that active members of the military are the intellectual authors of the murder of Senator Dario Gomez. To the Listin Diario he said that either the judiciary did not believe him or it was not politically convenient for anything to be done with the information he revealed in the case of the murdered senator. |
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Cruise ship travel up The director of the cruise ships department of the Dominican Port Authority, Cesar Wilmar Tejada Borges, says that during the cruise ship season of October to April 2003 some 600 ships will dock at Dominican ports. This is a figure 50% greater than that of 2001, when 500 ships visited the country, carrying a total of 34,000 passengers. He mentioned the following ships: Costa Romantica, Sunbird, Braemar, Explorer, Monalisa, Vista Mar, Marina, Paradise, Victoria, Atlantica, and the Millenium, among others. The ships will be docking at the ports of Don Diego, Almirante, Cristobal Colon and Sans Souci in Santo Domingo, as well as others in La Romana, Puerto Plata and Samana |
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Hilton to market Dominican hotels Hilton will announce during the London Travel Market (11-14 November) the marketing of Dominican hotels. Hilton Caribbean, a division of Hilton International, has just added an all-inclusive brand to its growing portfolio of hotels and resorts as a result of an agreement reached with Coral Hotels & Resorts (CHR) of the Dominican Republic. Following an initial transition period, as of February 1, 2003, it will be possible to make Coral by Hilton reservations online at www.hilton.com, through a travel professional, or by calling Hilton’s worldwide reservation system. Named Coral by Hilton, the brand will start with four resorts in the Dominican Republic, all of which are operated by CHR. Hilton Caribbean will sell and market the properties, which will continue to be managed by CHR. The new brand marks Hilton Caribbean’s entrée into the increasingly popular all-inclusive resort market and will make Hilton International the first major worldwide hotelier to create an all-inclusive brand. “The all-inclusive market has always figured prominently in our growth plans for Hilton Caribbean,” said Daniel Hughes, vice president of operations at Hilton Caribbean. “We just needed the right opportunity and the right partner,” he added. The CHR all-inclusive resorts, which will operate under the Coral by Hilton banner, are: Coral Canoa Beach Resort & Spa, Coral Costa Caribe Beach Resort & Casino, Coral Hamaca Beach Resort & Casino and Coral Marien Beach Resort & Spa. Coral Hotels & Resorts is also a partner in the Crowne Plaza Hotel company that will manage the group’s tower hotel in the Malecon Center in Santo Domingo. In addition, Coral also owns and manages Guavaberry Golf & Country Club, featuring an 18-hole golf course designed by Gary Player, in Juan Dolio. |
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No postponing of Pan Am Games Jose Joaquin Puello, president of the Organizing Committee of the 2003 Pan American Games, discarded the notion that the games would be postponed. He said that the Santo Domingo Games had already been postponed when the date was first changed from 26 July to 1 August. Puello has said that the Ministry of Public Works has promised that the venues will be ready on time. Yesterday, former president of the Dominican Olympic Committee and organizer of the very successful 1974 Central American & Caribbean Sports Games, Wiche Garcia Saleta, toured the Mirador del Este grounds where new sports installations are under construction, where he expressed his concerns that the undertakings would not be ready on time. Roque Napoleon Muñoz, another former president of the Olympic Committee, has also expressed his distress at the pace of the construction works that apparently have been affected by delays in government disbursements to the contractors. The Santo Domingo Pan Am Games are scheduled for 1-17 August 2003. Yesterday, the Organizing Committee of the Pan Am Games announced that the rowing and canoeing competitions would take place at Rincon Dam, about 35 minutes from Santo Domingo. |
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