| Daily News - 16 April 2004 |
The director of the governmental tax department known as DGII, Teofilo “Quico” Tabar, said the lack of financial supervision of clients and owners of banks was responsible for propagating the recent banking crisis. Tabar questioned the wisdom of changing the Monetary and Financial Code to impede the tax department from having complete access to data of financial institutions, and only being able to access this on a case-by-case basis.
The director of the DGII urged the elimination of the rulings in the Monetary and Financial Code that restrict the capacity of the DGII to carry out tax audits. He said the modification was inserted to the code under the argument that banking confidentiality is one of the pillars of the financial system. Tabar spoke during a presentation on fiscal reform recommendations at the Central Bank.
He said the job requirement of presenting a police report of good conduct be changed to require that the candidate present proof of an updated income tax filing.
Tabar also commented that there is no way the government will be able to cover the quasi-fiscal debt with an increase in the ITBIS tax.
During the same seminar, there seemed to be a consensus that it would be better to reduce the number of products and services exempt from the ITBIS tax. Both Central Bank Governor Jose Lois Malkum and the president of the National Council of Business (CONEP), Elena Viyella de Paliza, favored this position. Lois Malkum believes taxes should be reduced to serve as an incentive for more people and companies to pay their due. Viyella de Paliza said, "We want the taxable base to be expanded and that rates be dropped so that there are more people paying and more transparency," she said as reported in the Listin Diario.
Deputy Governor of the Central Bank Felix Calvo confirmed that the Central Bank has sold the Playa Grande development in the province of Maria Trinidad Sanchez on the North Coast to the Kohler Company of the United States for a sum of US$43 million. He told El Caribe that the sale would bring in US$24 million in cash upfront and US$19 million over seven years at a Libor rate plus 2%. Kohler, while better known for its plumbing and power generation plans, is also a major player in golf and spa holidays in the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin. Among its golf courses is Whistling Straits, which will host the 2004 PGA of American professional tournament.
Meanwhile, Tomas Fernandez, the local partner of Deloitte & Touche, said that the firm was an advisor to the Central Bank when the Eiger hotel firm was interested in the purchase last year, but the company desisted in its plans for the purchase last year. He said they had nothing to do with the Kohler acquisition at Playa Grande.
El Caribe dedicates its front-page story today to the changes the Senate has made to authorize commercial development of large areas of national parklands. On Tuesday, the Senate voted to reform 24 articles of the original bill prepared by the Ministry of Environment and introduced changes that are being rejected by environmentalists. The changes affects the protected limits of the Pomier Caves in South-Western San Cristobal, the Dunes of Las Calderas in Peravia (Bani), Playa Blanca in Azua, the Macao and Boca de Yuma (in the East) rivers, and especially the Bahia Las Aguilas in Pedernales and the National Park of the East.
Furthermore, El Caribe reports that among the modifications is one that would curtail the role of the Ministry of Environment, leaving it in charge of planning, supervising, regulating and controlling activities within protected areas only. The department would no longer authorize which projects can be developed, a direct contravention of what is established in Environmental Law 64-00.
The Association of Hotels of La Romana and Bayahibe protest the changes in an email referring to the “mutilation” of the National Park of the East by the Senate and urging a nationwide protest. “Apparently the ‘investors’ have become aware of the critical institutional moment we are living, and have blinded legislators with their talk of development for the country. The blinded Senate is using a full flame to cook this special dish that two or three ‘wiseguys’ have prepared, rubbing their hands together with mouths watering,” says the hotel association that has objects to the development of park areas. Lisette Gil, speaking for the hoteliers, urged that Dominicans not let themselves as a nation be blinded and instead repudiate the changes.
El Caribe has highlighted that President Mejia himself backs the relinquishment of lots 20A and 24A from the National Park of the East for major hotel development, representing about 60 square kilometers of park area. While the owners of the much-smaller Lot 24A is known to be Globalia, a company associated to Air Europa, the identity of the owners of Lot 20A lot has not been made public.
The newspaper emphasizes that Environmental Law 64-00, one of the first signed by President Hipolito Mejia at the start of his administration, expressly prohibits modifying the limits of national parks. Regardless, shortly after signing the law, President Mejia issued Decree 657-00 that excluded Lot 24A from the National Park of the East’s protected status. While the director of National Parks, Julio Cesar Urena, issued a document to certify that Lot 24A was part of the National Parks, Globalia went on to finalize its purchase. The newspaper says that in January 2003, President Mejia sent the Senate a bill to exclude both parcels of land from the park, a move that was met with heavy local opposition. Then in January 2004, President Mejia instructed Jose Hidalgo to go ahead with the construction of the Gran Palace Bayahibe Beach Resort on Lot 24A of the park. In February 2004, the Senate held hearings in La Romana to consider the opinions of various sectors on the bill to tamper with the park’s boundaries.
The law has yet to pass a second reading in the Senate prior to being forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies for ratification.
The chief of the Dominican Navy joined other military groups that are openly supporting President Hipolito Mejia’s re-election yesterday with his statements during a Mejia visit to Peravia province. As is widely being reported in the press today, President Mejia and First Lady Rosa Gomez yesterday visited the Las Calderas Naval Base in Bani that was remodeled by the government at a cost of RD$26.5 million. The chief of the Navy, Rear Admiral Euripedes Uribe Peguero, made a speech in which he praised all that the incumbent government had done to improve the force, but also said “that there was a lot more yet to be done” (Mejia’s campaign slogan) prior to Mejia concluding his “terms.” Uribe said that the statesman has promised to build a 50-bed hospital and a housing development for the Navy members.
Uribe highlighted that the Mejia government took “some financing” to confront what he described as an infinite number of problems inherited by government institutions from the previous government. Uribe described Mejia as a “great statesman” and criticized his predecessor, Leonel Fernandez, for handing over the government coffers in an empty state in 2000. “Thanks for all that you do for this country, which so much needs a President like you,” said Uribe, as reported in El Caribe.
At Calderas, the Navy presented the first Dominican-built tugboat by the newly created company, Astilleros Navales Bahia las Calderas, C por A, a Damen Stan Tug 2608 built with the assistance of the Dutch company Damen Shipyards, with a US$20-million foreign loan contracted by the government. The financing is also destined to pay for the construction of another tug boat and four patrol speedboats. In the past, the US Coast Guard Service had patrolled Dominican coasts to impede the entrance of illegal immigrants and drugs.
PLD political strategist Danilo Medina asked that President Hipolito Mejia cite which fortune he is alleging his opponent, PLD presidential candidate Leonel Fernandez, has not paid taxes on. “What is this fortune that he wants taxes to be paid on? On that which he does not have? As far as I know, Leonel does not have investments anywhere, is not receiving revenues from anywhere, and I do not even know if he is getting paid the wages that are due as past President of the Republic. On what is he going to pay taxes?” he asked, referring to Mejia’s request at a FINJUS presentation that former Presidents pay their taxes and his comments that Fernandez had been evading income taxation.
Medina furthermore reminded that Fernandez is president of the Fundacion Global, Democracia y Desarrollo, an organization dedicated to improving the quality of teaching and training of youths – not a businessman.
Meanwhile, Hoy newspaper in its second column, commends President Mejia for his recommendation that Presidents pay taxes, encouraging Mejia to set the example by paying his own. “We hope then that the President may be the first among his equals, and give the example of transparency and responsibility that is so much needed.”
A back-page commentary by Adriano Miguel Tejada of the Diario Libre reminds us that in 1996 Leonel Fernandez campaigned on the slogan “El Nuevo Camino,” which translates to the same one used by Bill Clinton (“The New Way”) to win the US presidency that same November. For this year’s election, Leonel Fernandez, is running again on the PLD ticket and campaigning on “E Pa’ Fuera que van!” Curiously, the Democrat candidate for the US is running on a translated version of this same slogan, “They got to go!”
Tejada wonders if history will repeat itself.
Dominicans who plan on voting in the 16 May presidential election are invited to participate in the electoral trial run on Saturday and Sunday at 12,203 voting stations nationwide and abroad. Some 9,741 tables, or 80% of the total 12,203 polling stations, will allow voters to verify their status. The operation will open at 7am on Saturday locally and international voting stations will open at 9am on Sunday.
The event will enable voters to verify that the voting station that is listed on their voting card is correct, so as to avoid unpleasant surprises that any changes may bring on voting day.
The head of the defense team for the erstwhile president of the collapsed Baninter bank, Ramon Baez Figueroa, yesterday accused high-ranking officers in the Mejia government of using pressure tactics and blackmail to sway Judge Eduardo Sanchez Ortiz, who is in charge of the Banintner case. Lawyer Marino Vinicio Castillo (Vincho) said these officers were seeking to remove key presidential re-election figures, Eligio Jaquez, Pastora Mendez and Ana Maria Acevedo, from the case. The lawyers representing Baez Figueroa have publicly stated that the three extorted the bank to obtain resources to finance the amendment to the Constitution that made re-election a possibility.
El Caribe newspaper reports today on the long lines of Haitians who are queuing up at the provisional Migration center that operates at the Dajabon governor’s office. The Migration officials are issuing cards to Haitians to allow them to enter and work in the country legally. Sources at the Dominican consulate in Juana Mendez object to these cards, however, which are reportedly being sold for RD$1,200 plus US$5 to those who apply. El Caribe reports that the issuing of the cards was made known after the Migration officers complained in writing that the military stationed in Dajabon were not respecting the access authorized by the card in all cases.
Dajabon’s Governor Casiano Lora told the newspaper that the money to buy the card is now the only requirement for Haitians to gain legal access to enter and work in the country, a condition could fill the country with Haitians. He said the authorities should instead take stronger actions, so that the motorcycles, vehicles, guns and cattle that have been stolen by Haitians along the border areas can be returned.
A Dominican consular officer in Juana Mendez says that this month they have only issued 18 visas of the 500 usually processed because of the competition from the Migration office. “This is illegal competition, but it also has to do with the government, because certain international treaties, the Dominican Constitution and even Law 344 on Migration are being violated,” said the unnamed consular source.
President Hipolito Mejia received Pan American medalists at the Presidential Palace yesterday, where he handed out government apartment property titles to eight gold medalists, Felix Sanchez, Juana Arrendel, Luis Benitez, Gina Maria Ruiz, Luis Lin Ju, Heidi Rodriguez, Ruben Salomon and Juan Ubaldo Cabrera. Wanda Rijo received her apartment previously. President Mejia awarded checks worth RD$200,000 to each women’s volleyball gold medalists and RD$150,000 to the members of the silver-medalist men’s basketball team. Forty coaches of medal-winning athletes received checks for RD$50,000 each.
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