| Daily News - 2 April 2004 |
President Hipolito Mejia yesterday denied that he had quarrelled with collapsed Baninter bank president Ramon Baez Figueroa, as is alleged in a brief presented by the attorneys of Baninter and followed up in Hoy newspaper today. According to the brief, at the beginning of 2002 Mejia threatened to close Baninter and have Baez Figueroa arrested, to which Baez Figueroa purportedly replied that he would knock Mejia from power. "This incident never happened. It is a lie," stated Mejia.
The brief also accuses three leaders of the PPH faction of the ruling PRD, former Agriculture Minister Eligio Jaquez, National Treasurer Pastora Mendez de Fondeur and PRD party pollster Ana Maria Acevedo, of swindle, extortion and prevarication in an effort to destroy Baninter. It further outlines details of a receipt by the three of a RD$15-million loan without identification. According to a related story in the Listin, Mejia when interviewed on the campaign trail in Pedernales said, "We are going to pay the money back, we have already paid part of it." Furthermore, Mejia informed: "There are a lot of big fish that also received big sums and are going to have to pay up."
Mejia said that he would stay out of the Baninter judicial process and let justice take its course.
Diario Libre reports that, contrary to what he said one week ago, PRD campaign director Eligio Jaquez said yesterday that he, Pastora Mendez de Fondeur and Ana Maria Acevedo went to Baninter for a loan of RD$34 million under their own names. He explained that they needed the funds as resources for the elections of 2002. A week ago Jaquez had stated that the money from Baninter had been taken out in the name of the PRD, as reported in the Listin Diario on 24 March.
Jaquez denied Baez Figueroa's defense lawyers' allegations that they "extorted" Baninter officials in order to receive the disbursement, which included a RD$15-million loan and an open line of credit of RD$34 million. When asked why Baninter was so generous with their loans, Jaquez replied, "Bank contributions are completely normal in campaigns."
Court proceedings in this case are scheduled to continue on 15 April.
Interior & Police Minister Pedro Franco Badia is accusing former President Leonel Fernandez of not acting upon the findings of a diagnostic report despite being aware of the tenuous financial situation of the Baninter bank. Franco Badia called a press conference at the Ministry of Interior & Police to reveal that the audit was started in 1999 and ended in May 2000. On 16 May 2000, incumbent President Hipolito Mejia was elected.
In a press conference yesterday, as reported only in the government-intervened Listin Diario, Franco Badia said the diagnosis shows that then President Leonel Fernandez, former Central Bank Governor Hector Valdez Albizu and Superintendent of Banks Vicente Bengoa were aware of the high-risk situation of the bank. He said the government did not take measures to avoid the collapse of the bank back then that were recommended by the Spanish consultants, J.A. Asesores Bancarios y Financieros, placing the national financial system in jeopardy. He said that Fernandez, Valdez and Bengoa protected Baninter when it was their duty to intervene to avert the present crisis. He said that despite being aware of the delicate situation of the bank, the current PLD Presidential candidate accepted millions in donations for his Fundacion Global think-tank center. Franco Badia mentions that Fernandez received more than RD$60 million through one Luis Manuel Casado to open a Baninter account for the foundation.
Franco Badia says that the Summary and Conclusions section of the report is categorical in its revelations of the difficulties of the bank.
He said the report indicated: "The bank has a large concentration of risk, with 150 debtors holding 75.5% of the loan portfolio, which substantially increases the degree of vulnerability of the bank."
Likewise, the same document reveals that RD$1.383 million of this portfolio accounted for loans with dubious collateral, and that the bank held a negative operational situation that was depleting its capital at a rate of 10% per year.
Interestingly, in his press conference, Franco Badia did not explain why the Mejia administration also neglected to act. While the audit was available as early as August 2000 upon the change of administration, Mejia's monetary and financial authorities further postponed action on the available findings until May 2003, when, as telecast from the Presidential Palace, Central Bank Governor Jose Lois Malkum denounced the bank executives for grand-scale financial fraud. Before this date, Central Bank authorities had publicly reaffirmed the solidity of Baninter on several occasions.
El Caribe reports that the Mejia campaign strategists are suffering from the boomerang effect of having introduced the Baninter crisis as a dig to discredit former President Leonel Fernandez, under whose government Baninter became a major player in Dominican business and society. The defence bar of the bank's former president, from the law firm of Marino Vinicio Castillo, are crusading with new legal suits that document irregular "loans" to key people in the PPH front that supports the re-election of President Mejia, taken from the bank in 2002. Furthermore, El Caribe reports that PLD lawyer Radhames Jimenez stated that there are other aspects of the case that will shake society when they become known, in addition to the supposed use of the credit card of Colonel Pedro Julio (Pepe) Goico, at the time head of security for President Mejia, to the tune of US$50 million. El Caribe says the defence bar of former Baninter president Ramon Baez Figueroa has promised to release further evidence of what they call "a perverse conspiracy from political power echelons" against their client. According to Juarez Castillo, one of Baez Figueroa's lawyers, they will present new documentation against the government officials involved in the conspiracy, to include among these the former governor of the Central Bank, Frank Guerrero Prats, present governor Jose Lois Malkum, and the economic advisor to the President, Andy Dauhajre. Likewise, the newspaper says the lawyers are seeking to prove that the Supervisor of Public Works of the Presidency, PPH figurehead Hernani Salazar, obtained a RD$30-million disbursement from Baninter, according to the lawsuit, to convince Congress to modify the Constitution so that Mejia could seek re-election. Juarez Castillo promised more shocking news for after Easter. Stay tuned:
The Interamerican Development Bank's DR representative, Moises Pineda, denied a story published in last Monday's Listin Diario whereby IDB ethics official Bernard Klisberg had supposedly declared that the Dominican Republic, alongside Brazil, Argentina and El Salvador, had dramatically reduced its rate of governmental corruption. Bernard Klisberg is the coordinator of the Interamerican Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics and Development of the IDB organization.
According to a story in Hoy newspaper, Pineda said that the IDB had not issued any judgment regarding corruption levels in the Dominican Republic.
The IDB does not have the methodology, nor it is responsible, for making statements like the one published last Monday, he explained.
He stated that while the IDB does have programs to help countries combat corruption, the institution is not directly involved in reducing or evaluating any level of corruption. He said that between what appeared in the Excelsior newspaper of Mexico and the version published in the Listin Diario, there was a very dramatic jump that altered the truth. He explained how IDB executives were concerned by reading the story because it leads to confusion as to the bank's role.
He further noted that all IDB projects are negotiated by both IDB and local government officials as a partnership and all funds given to the projects are carefully monitored to ensure they are appropriately spent.
The dean of the PUCMM Law School, Flavio Dario Espinal, muses today in El Caribe on whether the goods confiscated from Baninter by virtue of the Law on Asset Laundering can be used for the political promotion of the official candidate or of any other political candidate. He also wonders whether those goods should not rather be in the hands of the Office for the Custody and Administration of Confiscated Goods until there is a judicial judgment to determine who they should be assigned to. He also speculates in his writing if Electoral Law 275-97 does not deem as illicit the direct or indirect intervention of the state in the financing of electoral campaigns, apart from the funds allotted by the National Budget according to the same law.
Espinal writes that when the media companies were confiscated, many people felt that the covert purpose of the government was to make available a wide network of media companies given the proximity of the election campaign. He says that reality has proven that prediction to be more than true.
Espinal states that the government has systematically made use of media confiscated from Baninter for the telecast of campaign activities of the PRD candidate, inaugurations of government works that are the main focus of the re-election campaign, news releases and newscasts with a clear pro-government slant.
"We must convince Peynado". The sentence has been repeated lately on several occasions in various partisan environments, and it is the clearest expression yet that the former Vice-President of the Republic, Jacinto Peynado, maintains his influential place in the Dominican political system, despite his controversial and much-rumored absence from the DR for the past nine months, reports Diario Libre.
Both President Hipolito Mejia, who is running for re-election, and PLD Presidential candidate Leonel Fernandez, want him on their side before the election takes place in May and admit they have regular contact with him. Peynado has been in the United States for an extended period for treatment of an undisclosed illness. Over the past nine months there have been rumors of his death, but Peynado is reportedly returning from Miami this weekend, well in advance of the May elections. Diario Libre says he is considering which of the four political options he should take. One is to support his own PRSC party, which he reportedly has already discarded as an option. He may also support one of the two leading candidates, Hipolito Mejia or Leonel Fernandez. Finally, he could stay out of the process altogether.
Peynado has refused to support his own party's presidential candidate, alleging that Eduardo Estrella won the primary, in which Peynado was also a contender, by fraud.
Hoy newspaper reports delays of half an hour to two hours on flights departing from Las Americas (Santo Domingo), Punta Cana and Puerto Plata, as takeoffs and landings were being spaced out for added safety on the second day of the civilian air controllers' work stoppage. Hoy reports that only flights out of Santiago, which has the least traffic, were normal yesterday. Traffic at seven Dominican airports is being operated by air controllers that have not joined the unofficial strike and by military air controllers.
Bolivar de Leon, the president of the Association of Controllers, insists they are not on strike. He told El Caribe reporters that the controllers are willing to return to work "if the military controllers are removed and the Civil Aviation Board provides them with data that shows they can please us: We need to talk on the grounds of something concrete regarding our requests."
But El Caribe also reports that the Civil Aviation Board head, Carlos Alvarez Guzman, is not giving in. He believes the workers are privileged government employees. "The country cannot be at the hands of a group of people who can paralyze it. They had to be confronted. The responsibility was mine, and I have assumed it," he told El Caribe. "There is no money for wage increases, the agreements with the IMF impede this," he affirmed.
El Caribe reports that to this, Bolivar de Leon asked where the money came from to accommodate the numerous promotions within the military in February. He said the solution is that the government streamline part of the airport charges to pay the controllers.
Diario Libre says the government has hired Mexican controllers that will cost US$3,000 plus US$50 in per diems each for the 30-day assignment. Reportedly, a company named Global Aircraft Group, based in Miami, is doing the hiring on the Civil Aviation Board's behalf. Dominican controllers on average make less than US$1,000 a month.
The local impasse is also receiving international attention. The National Air Traffic Controllers' Association of the United States has sided with their Dominican counterparts. In a press release issued on 31 March, NATCA condemned the actions of the government.
http://www.natca.org/mediacenter/pressreleasedetail.asp?id=291
In 1981, almost 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike in the US demanding wage increases, a shorter work week and better retirement packages. President Reagan responded by firing 11,350 workers 48 hours after the walkout and declared a lifetime ban on the rehiring of the strikers by the FAA. As a result, automated en-route air traffic control systems are in now place to increase the computerization of directing air traffic, thus converting the controllers' role into more of a monitor than an active participant.
In recent years, work stoppages have similarly threatened the skies in Canada and a five-day strike hurt air traffic in France this year.
Controversy has arisen over the nearly 40,000 tons of a substance identified as rock-ash and dumped in Manzanillo in the northwest, where the material lies in big piles on land in front of the port's headquarters. Hoy newspaper says the company responsible for the rockash is Trans-Dominican, represented by Antonio Rosario Pimentel. The Ministry of Environment, through Under-Secretary Rene Ledesma, granted a permit to carry the material from Puerto Rico. The substance is meant for use to condition the loading dock at the port at Manzanillo, to increase their capacity to support weight and to "diminish the plasticity."
Another company, Multigestiones Valenza, represented by Roger Charles Dies, has carried a similar quantity of the material to the port of Arroyo Barril, Samana. Diario Libre's Adriano Miguel Tejada says that it is not clear how a permit for construction material for Manzanillo was also used to import the material for Samana.
The controversy exploded in the public's opinion when Samana's Senator Ramiro Espino denounced in the Senate session of 23 March that the substance was toxic.
Nevertheless, Ledesma has declared that the material is not toxic and that it is merely the product of the mineral coal's combustion in the electric generation plants. Ledesma said that this substance is often used in flooring and is very safe.
Espino insisted that this substance was harmful and could cause illness to residents in his district. These accusations caused the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources to suspend the imports of the material until further data could be obtained.
Another issue being debated regarding the importing of rockash is whether the Environmental Law itself was violated. The ruling outlaws the import of any refuse.
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 1996-2012. DR1. All Rights Reserved.