| Daily News - 30 October 2003 |
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Milagros to stand alone Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch has broken away from the group of six pre-candidates opposed to the President's re-election, announcing that she would put herself up independently for selection as Presidential candidate at the party convention, against President Hipolito Mejia. The convention model is the President's preferred method for the PRD to choose its candidate for the Presidential election of 2004. The anti-re-election group, which originally consisted of seven PRD Presidential hopefuls, is now down to just five members: Hatuey De Camps, Jose Rafael Abinader, Ramon Alburquerque, Emmanuel Esquea and Rafael Flores Estrella. Rafael "Fello" Subervi Bonilla broke from their ranks on the eve of the plebiscite. The group's stance was that Presidential re-election was not sanctioned by the PRD constitution, and they had pursued a strategy of surveying the party membership on their views about this, eventually holding a plebiscite earlier this month that resulted in a categorical 90% 'no' vote, but displayed a relatively low turnout of PRD members. Ortiz Bosch called on Hatuey Decamps, party president, and another pre-candidate opposed to Presidential re-election to convene a meeting of the party's executive committee, with the aim of organizing a convention, and asking that neutral groups like Participacion Ciudadana and international organizations be brought in to ensure the process would be carried out appropriately and with transparency. Ortiz Bosch's justification for her volte-face was that excluding President Mejia from the pre-selection process could lead to a drawn-out legal process with the Central Electoral Board (JCE), which would jeopardize the party's chances in the 2004 polls. "Certain of victory, I feel obliged to contribute to the resolution of this conflict," she told a large assembly of her supporters at Santo Domingo's Plaza hotel last night. She did not exclude the possibility of reaching an agreement with one of her fellow pre-candidates to join her on the ballot as her Vice-President and reaffirmed her opposition to the principle of re-election. "We shall defeat re-election with our candidacy and our votes," the Vice-President declared, warning that "Milagros Ortiz Bosch cannot be bought." She blamed the President for the country's problems but did not spare the main opposition PLD party, saying that her candidacy would prevent the possibility of a return to "a purple past, which was not transparent, progressive or inclusive." Purple is the PLD's party campaigning color. |
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Re-election opponent re-elected Hatuey Decamps, PRD party president, pre-Presidential hopeful and perhaps the most fierce opponent of President Hipolito Mejia's re-election ambitions, has won a re-election of his own. Decamps was unanimously re-elected vice president of the Socialist International organization (IS) at their convention in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil yesterday. The Diario Libre's back-page column "De buena tinta" by Adriano Miguel Tejada informs that the PPH (Proyecto Presidencial Hipolito) delegation to the convention were unable to stop their adversary's re-appointment, as reportedly was their goal as the first step in a strategy to depose him as PRD president. "El Cacique" (the Chief) as Decamps is known, for his Taino namesake as well as for his leadership qualities, now has a better hand of cards for his return to the fray when he arrives back in the Dominican Republic, says Tejada, who can be contacted at atejada@tricom.net |
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Tax reform to fight evasion Hoy newspaper quotes Finance Minister Rafael Calderon as saying that the country is in urgent need of fiscal reform. Such reform would need to be effective in the fight against tax evasion, which he said was widespread in the Dominican Republic. "We cannot go on creating new taxes and raising the current rates, at the expense of those who pay, while others pay nothing or not enough," he said. In Calderon's opinion, tax evasion is almost routine and many business charge their customers ITBIS (value-added tax), but do not declare the full extent of their incomes. Government income is above target, said Calderon, saying that the quasi-fiscal deficit was a consequence of non-payment of taxes: fiscal income for this year had been estimated at RD$5.8 billion yet only RD$1.1 has come in. El Caribe says that according to economists, the Dominican Republic enjoys one of the lowest tax burdens in the world, at an approximate rate of 16%. The newspaper proceeds, however, to make its own calculations based on a middle-income family's monthly RD$20,000 income. It estimates the average employee's tax bill at 25% of their revenue, taking into account regular expenditures such as fuel, vehicle license plates and ITBIS paid on purchases. Added to this are taxes on life's small indulgences, such the occasional meal in a restaurant and a modest amount of alcohol and tobacco, which further reduce the family's net income to just over RD$15,000. Most of these taxes are almost impossible to dodge. The newspaper quotes Felipe Hernandez Paulus, president of the Dominican Tributary Foundation, who says that the government's own track-record on management and transparency acts as a disincentive for ordinary citizens to declare their full earnings. |
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Electricity not "at an all-time low" President Hipolito Mejia denied the suggestions by the Superintendence of Electricity that the power-supply situation was at its lowest point, claiming that the problems in the Cibao region, which includes the country's second largest city, Santiago, had been resolved. "The problems in the Cibao are over, Puerto Plata (the generating station) has been repaired," he told reporters yesterday. Writing for the Listin Diario newspaper, Raul Perez Pena says that the intended sale of 75% of power-company shares brings an end to any doubt that this government's policies on power issues are similar to those of the Leonel Fernandez administration (1996 - 2000). Perez Pena says both the previous and current governments are "cut from the same cloth" and that the choice ahead is between "bad and worse". The writer can be contacted at columnapancarta@yahoo.com |
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Devaluation and "Ede" sales inflate debt The peso's devaluation has increased the country's external debt by 75%, according to a report in the Listin Diario, from the original estimate of RD$7 billion to RD$12.25 billion. In the paper's economy section, a separate article quotes Jaime Aristy Escuder, an advisor to the Electricity Sector's Sustainabilty Committee, as saying that the government's reacquisition of the power distribution companies known as the "Edes" had tacked US$5.7 million (RD$200 million) on to the country's external debt bill. Finance Minister Rafael Calderon dismissed suggestions that these figures would affect the fate of the frozen "standby" agreement with the International Monetary Fund. "The (IMF) experts are in the final phase of the report and will have it ready in November," he told reporters yesterday. |
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Exporters ask for removal of surcharge President Hipolito Mejia thanked the business community for their decision to make the so-called "temporary solidarity contributions" to government coffers, with the aim of helping the government overcome its deficit and get the "standby" agreement with the International Monetary Fund back on track. Exporters' association ADOEXPO president Samir Rizek asked President Mejia to withdraw the proposed surcharge on export items. The associations is also asking for guarantees that fiscal stability, budgetary balance and monetary and exchange rate stability will be restored. They demand that small- and medium-sized businesses be protected from the possible effects of a forthcoming regional free-trade agreement and immediate fiscal reform. The President addressed ADOEXPO's XVIII Dominican Exporters' Dinner, thanking them for being "the only ones who had paid" - a reference to the surcharges on exports. |
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CONEP proposes compensation fund Elena Viyella de Paliza, president of private business association CONEP, has suggested that the government create a compensation fund to help small- and medium-sized businesses face the challenge of an unregulated market, as is expected with the introduction of the forthcoming free trade agreement with the US. The government has set up schemes that support these smaller companies, mainly in the shape of finance, but these efforts have been insufficient for them to face the challenges ahead, said Viyella de Paliza. Small- and medium-sized businesses, she said, were the most vulnerable to changes in the market as part of the process of opening up trade relations. |
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Business support for privatization The president of the Dominican industrialists association (AIRD) Lisandro Macarrulla voiced his support yesterday for the planned partial privatization of the power sector. "The business sector will know how to manage this more efficiently," he said, while nevertheless admitting that the manner in which the process was carried out would be crucial in determining its success or failure. Andres Dauhajre Sr, president of the national importers association (ANI), echoed these opinions and went a step further: he declared that the government should be looking at selling 100% of all shares and that the generation companies should take over distribution to minimize the intermediary cost-margins, improve efficiency and eliminate cashflow problems due to delays in payment that plague the sector in its cumbersome two-tier structure. |
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Venezuelan ambassador returns The Venezuelan ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Francisco Belisario Landis, and Interior & Justice Minister Luis Rincon Romero arrived in Santo Domingo yesterday, in an apparent attempt to heal the rift between the two countries. They are due to meet with President Hipolito Mejia today. Belisario was recalled to Caracas in September following accusations that Dominican government officials were complicit in an alleged conspiracy against Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez being hatched on Dominican soil by exiled Venezuelan opposition members, including former President Carlos Andres Perez. Perez left the Dominican Republic some weeks ago on an extended trip and is currently in a New York City hospital recovering from a stroke. Venezuelan oil exports to the Dominican Republic remain suspended as a result of the dispute. Rumors persist that the two heads of state are due to meet in Panama early next week. |
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Shortage of hope El Caribe's main editorial speaks about the despair of thousands of Dominicans who put their lives at risk to make illegal crossings to Puerto Rico. US Coast Guard statistics report that over 6,000 Dominicans attempted to traverse the hazardous Mona Passage between September 2002 and 2003. Just over one-third were successful and the rest were captured and repatriated by the US Coast Guard. The numbers of illegal would-be immigrants who choose this course of action have more than doubled since 1999, when fewer than 3,000 made the journey. "When the country is suffering an economic crisis and the authorities are incapable of explaining how to confront it, business is affected and investors speak of a lack of confidence. For the ordinary citizen what is lost is hope. The country is suffering from a crisis of hope. People have lost faith in that national problems will be solved and that's why they want to emigrate - desperately - no matter how." The writer concludes: "It is up to all leaders, within government and outside it, to work to restore hope. If people believe the economy will improve, there will be more opportunities and fewer will make the dangerous and uncertain maritime voyage." The Diario Libre reports on a case of Dominican stowaways discovered in the cargo hold of a Miami-bound airplane at Santo Domingo's Las Americas International Airport. They claimed to have paid RD$50,000 to someone, most likely an airport employee, to be allowed access to the aircraft. |
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