President Leonel Fernandez was busy over the weekend, naming PRSC activist Humberto Salazar as his medical advisor, via Decree 905-04, and also appointing 11 under-ministers, 23 provincial governors, 35 assistant district attorneys for the National District (Santo Domingo) and two assistant legal councilors. The decree designated Julio Anibal Fernandez Javier, Rolando Perez Uribe, Griseldy Rodriguez, Pura Burgos and Eric Hazim as under-ministers of finance to replace an equal number of officials removed from their posts. Decree 903-04 named Felix Medina, Jose Gabriel Fernandez, Rafael Schiffino, Maria Villa and Guillermo Serra as new under-minister of public health.
Among the many provincial governors designated in Decree 900-04 were Jose Izquierdo in Santiago, Orlando Espinosa in San Cristobal, Mariano Morla in San Pedro, Luz Selene Plata in Duarte province (San Francisco de Macoris), Mario Jose Hidalgo in LaVega, Francis Vargas in Puerto Plata, Pedro Rojas Morillo in La Altagracia (Higuey), and Jose Luis Cosme in Maria Trinidad Sanchez (Nagua).
The President also included Major General Jose Anibal Sanz Jiminian, naming him the head of the National Council on Drugs. Andres Vanderhorst was named the head of the Airport Authority, and Emerson Diaz became the administrator of the Housing and Assistance Institute (INAVI). Decree 906-04 also named Jaime Vargas Jr as an ambassador to the Chancellery in charge of Asian Affairs, and Jose Zapata was named under-minister of labor. Also included in the decree were the designations for the Corporation for State Enterprises (CORDE) to be headed by Manuel Tapia Linares; the Commission for the Reform of Public Enterprises to be headed by Felix Alcantara, and at PROMESE, the entity that provides low-cost medicines to public hospitals and individuals in need, Elena Fernandez and Julio Baez were named director and sub-director. Hector Otero Cruz was names as under-minister for public health. Decree 911-04 named Gerardo Apolinar Aquino, Aristedes Victoria and Arismendi Bautista as under-Minister of the interior & police, and Jose Maria Sosa as administrative under-minister for the Presidency.
Secretary of State Colin Powell offered his support to new Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, according to Carlos Morales Troncoso, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. As reported in the Listin Diario, Morales was participating in the XXIII Summit Meeting of Chancellors of the Group of Rio, when he received a call from Powell to congratulate the new head of state. According to the report, Powell expressed his confidence that “the Dominican Republic would come out ahead of the great challenges that are facing the nation.” At the same time, Powell allegedly pledged the support of the United States and strengthened relations between the two countries. The press release from the Dominican Foreign Ministry also mentioned Powell’s confidence regarding Dominican foreign policy in the Caribbean.
Newly seated President Leonel Fernandez, who was widely criticized for his many trips overseas only to be far outdone by Hipolito Mejia, will be on his way to Panama and the United States in September. Fernandez will be in Panama on 1 September for the inauguration of Omar Torrijos, that nation’s new head of state. The Diario Libre reports that both PLD party leader Reinaldo Pared Perez and the President’s minister for technical affairs, Temistocles Montas, will attend the ceremony. On 20 September, Fernandez will attend the Meeting of World Leaders for the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, sponsored by the United Nations and to be held in New York. Foreign policy had been a trademark of the previous Fernandez administration and this tendency appears to continue
An IMF team of experts identified the causes of the banking crisis that immersed the country into the critical economic situation it finds itself today. The pundits hired by the IMF to analyze the collapse of three important banks said that an independent Central Bank and Superintendence of Banks, along with a clear definition of these entities according to international financial and banking parameters, are essential elements to avoid a repetition of the economic disaster. The experts blamed all of the supervisory organisms that were meant to be overseeing the nation’s banking authorities: the Superintendent of Banks, the Central Bank and the Monetary Board. The team, some of whose members are former national superintendents of banking in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, found a lack of institutionalism and poor banking practices in both the public and private sectors. The team, according to Hoy, criticized the molly-coddling attitude of the Superintendence at the moment that action should have been taken against those bankers in violation of the banking laws. In part, the poor performance was ascribed to a lack of trained personnel and inadequate equipment, as well as the lack of firmness on the part of the Superintendence. The team also levels its critique at the interference of the Central Bank in areas of supervision, apparently finding much fault with the makeup of the Monetary Board. The experts were not sold on the fact that the Central Bank had not detected the Baninter manipulations in the “parallel bank system,” when there were daily exchanges with the Chamber of Compensation. The fact that none of the supervisory organisms seemed to have noticed the ostentatious lifestyle of the chief executives of Baninter, the massive publicity campaign and the continual purchase of real estate was also pointed out. The experts do not let the Banking Association off the hook, either. The ABA statement that the crisis only affected the three banks did not sit well with the team and they doubted that the other members were ignorant of the double accounting practices used by the now-collapsed banks. The external auditors were soundly criticized by the IMF team for the way they published the bank statements and the government of Hipolito Mejia and the National Congress also come under fire. In fact, according to Hoy, everything the government did was wrong to some degree, and the slow moving court cases are, for the team, yet another worry.
Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito told reporters that he was waiting for the finalized list of employees to be posted to the Justice Department in order to begin the process of evaluations of the different district attorneys. These steps are necessary to fulfill the requirements for the irrevocability established under the Statute of the Justice Department. President Leonel Fernandez has named the district attorneys for the National District and for 24 provinces, as well as 74 assistant prosecutors, but there are still 500 designations awaiting the President’s signature. The Diario Libre says that one of the top priorities of his team is to train the department and acquaint them with the new Penal Code that soon comes into effect. Dominguez said he would work closely with the National School of Justice and the National Police, and expressed complete confidence in the application of the new code. The presidential legal advisor, Cesar Pina Toribio, told the reporters that the idea is to get the members of the Judicial Department covered by the Judicial Civil Service law as soon as possible, and this will require an extensive evaluation of all the personnel in the department.
The new chief of the National Police, Major General Manuel de Jesus Perez Sanchez, has ordered that members of the investigative departments be in uniform when conducting patrols. At the same time, he ordered members of the police force and representatives of private investigators to meet on a daily basis to exchange information, with direct reports to be made to his office every four days. The chief also created posts for press officials at the investigation departments, according to Hoy, as well as one for a public relations officer.
AES-Andres has received a shipment of LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) for its generators in Andres and Los Mina. The newly arrived fuel will provide as much as 510 megawatts to the national system. According to reports in the Listin Diario and other papers, the announcement by President Fernandez that he would provide US$50 million to the sector in the short term has given the generators the boost of confidence they needed to get things rolling again. Most of the country experienced longer periods of electric service over the past weekend, that is to say areas along the central axis of the nation: Santo Domingo, La Vega, Santiago and Puerto Plata. Smith-Enron and the Union Fenosa generators were again online and Superintendent of Electricity Radhames Segura said that while the AES generator was producing only 200 MW, full production would be resumed today.
Writer and commentator Emilio Lapayese lost his long battle with diabetes at the age of 69 over the weekend. Lapayese was the author of the short column “En solo cien palabras” (“In Just 100 Words”) that appeared nearly every day in Hoy newspaper. His writing was described as ironic, critical and incisive and his comments frequently appeared in the DR1 News.
The Diario Libre celebrates its 1,000th edition today, the oldest and largest of the new-style, smaller-format free press in the Dominican Republic. The inspiration for this new type of newspaper came from Sweden, where the Metro appeared as the first of the new format newspapers, designed to be read quickly. Today, three years and three months after first seeing the light of day, the Diario Libre is the most read paper in the country, reaching 85,000 readers and their families each day.
Felix “Super” Sanchez took part in the qualifying heats for the 400-meter hurdle event today, in which he earned a time of 48:51. This time secures him a spot in tomorrow’s semi-finals. He is the best Dominican hope for a medal, and perhaps the favorite in his event. The finals for this event are due to take place on Thursday.
Carlos Yohelin Santa won his preliminary heat of the 400-meter race with a respectable time of 45:31. Unfortunately, in the semi-finals he earned a lesser time of 45.58, which was not good enough to qualify him for the finals. If the Dominican Republic is permitted to field a 4 x 400 team, a decision that is pending on the Technical Committee, Santa may have one more chance to win a medal. The other Dominican runner, Juan Sainflaur, injured himself and was unable to finish his heat. Skeet-shooter Julio Elizardo Dujarric qualified for the semi-finals in his specialty event in ninth place among the 41 competitors, but came in 21st in the semi-finals and will not go on to the finals. In boxing, the DR’s Juan Carlos Payano lost to Frenchman Jerome Thomas. The women’s Pan-American champion volleyball team has had a rough ride in these Olympic Games. After beating the USA in five sets, Cristobal Marte’s athletes lost 0-3 to Cuba and were eliminated by yesterday’s 0-3 defeat by Germany. This was the first appearance of a Dominican volleyball team at the Olympic level.
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