President Leonel Fernandez, First Lady Margarita Cedeno and Vice-President Rafael Alburquerque were in the front row to attend the lecture of David Osborne titled "Reinventing Government" that took place last night at the Barcelo Gran Hotel Lina. While the event was open to the general public, the hotel's Salon de la Mancha was packed with government officers. The Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, the think-tank research center founded by President Leonel Fernandez, sponsored the conference.
Osborne's discourse was given at a time when the Fernandez government is being criticized for maintaining most of the bureaucratic wastefulness inherited from its predecessor and has also pushed for new taxes to pay for it.
Osborne and Peter Hutchinson of the Public Strategies Group, as the authors of the best-selling "The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis" challenged Dominicans to become the next Singapore or Jamaica within 40 years. Osborne commented how both countries were at the same level of poverty in 1960 and how Singapore, primarily due to good government, had forged ahead to become the fourth wealthiest country in the world in terms of per capita income. He observed that the DR holds an advantage because it can study the cases of countries that have gone through the change of downsizing in government.
"If the Dominican Republic is to grow, one of the key factors is the quality of its government," he highlighted, saying also that private investment follows good governance. He described good government as one that is transparent, honest and has a professional public sector that is free of political patronage, and where the goal is to serve the people and not the politicians. He suggested that public servants be prohibited from campaigning for politicians.
A government in the 21st century needs to be agile, flexible, willing to innovate and constantly seeking improvements in order to thrive in the present information age that is marked by rapid change, new technologies, limited resources and increased competition. Osborne suggested that, instead of maintaining large bureaucracies, governments should subcontract the private sector parties and non-governmental agencies. He stressed the importance of instating accountability and result-oriented, mission-driven systems for both external and internal suppliers and departments.
Osborne urged the government to put a cap on the tax revenues it is taking in. "We cannot keep raising taxes; investment will leave," he said, emphasizing that the government must find ways to provide better quality services at lower costs.
Osborne sees the primary role of government as a catalyst, in which it steers instead of rowing and serves as a broker and facilitator by leveraging the private sector and NGOs.
He furthermore challenged the government to look into strategies such as that of allotting citizens vouchers so that they may choose the providers of the education of their children, be it in the public or private sector. This system, which he says is already in place in Chile, has served as a way to instill competitiveness, which he stressed is the key to improving the quality of services at a lower cost to all.
Citing his new bestseller, Osborne said that leadership is the most important factor when trying to improve public service with no money. "Great leaders can change and promote certain values and create incentives," he said. To achieve this change he urged pushing a big idea relentlessly, with small steps and patience.
At the end of the talk, President Leonel Fernandez endorsed the challenge and said that the words spoken there that night consolidated and strengthened the ideas he has had in mind for government since his first administration (1996-2000). The President recalled the first successes achieved in decentralization, such as the passport-in-a-day option and the program to expedite the issue of drivers' licenses (making them possible to procure even in Helados Bon ice cream shops), and cited them as examples of the vision for modernization in the Dominican government. He admitted that the DR has been implementing the industrial bureaucratic model of the 20th century, but said that now is the time to embrace the double agenda before us. "We must confront the unfinished tasks of the past and the challenges of the present," he said, and promised that as the Presidential Palace changes, so would the country.
Bill and Hillary Clinton visited Punta Cana for a short vacation over the weekend The Clintons have been frequent travelers to Punta Cana since making it their first vacation destination abroad following the end of the Clinton presidency. President Leonel Fernandez and First Lady Margarita Cedeno traveled to the East Coast resort town yesterday to have lunch with the former US President and New York senator at the home of tourism magnate Frank Rainieri of the Punta Cana Group. Others present at the luncheon were Rainieri's wife Heyde; his daughter Francesca Rainieri and her husband Marcos Parada; his son Frank Elias Rainieri; and Rolando Gonzalez, the president of the Punta Cana energy supply company.
The Presidential Office reported that the former US statesman had invited President Fernandez to participate in the forum on energy and the electricity industry that is to take place in New York City. As reported in a release from the Presidential Palace, Clinton reaffirmed his commitment to promote investments from Arabian countries to the Dominican Republic, primarily in the field of energy.
The efforts of the Ministry of Environment, now under Max Puig, to reign in the excesses of powerful gravel extraction companies from Dominican rivers are making headlines. El Caribe reports that Deputy Minister Ernesto Reyna Alcantara said that the institution is reviewing permits that were issued for this activity during the previous government. As reported, the deputy minister yesterday notified these companies that Decree 145-03 prohibits the extraction of construction material in the evening. News coverage has focused on how the gravel trucks notoriously overstep their boundaries by operating well into the night. Last Friday, the environmental police seized 32 trucks that were violating the measure by transporting the construction material at dawn, as reported in Diario Libre. Reyna said the ministry would also prosecute the hardware stores that sell gravel that has been illegally extracted from the rivers. The ministry is going after the companies that are violating their permits.
Nevertheless, Colonel Valerio Garcia Reyes said that with only 267 men in the environmental police force, they are limited in their efforts to enforce environmental regulations. Yesterday, a major traffic jam occurred on the San Cristobal highway, when environmental police detained the incoming loaded trucks to review their permits.
International and Dominican experts are currently working on a nationwide plan to reduce the risks and effects of potential natural disasters. The offices of the United Nations, Technical Secretariat of the Presidency, the United Nations Development Program, the National Planning Office (ONAPLAN), the National Office for European Development Funds (ONFED) and Civil Defense have joined forces in the drafting of a strategic framework to reduce the DR's vulnerability and prepare for natural disasters.
The director general of wages, Gloria Henriquez Nova, said that the wage increase for private sector employees will go into effect on 28 November. She said that employers need to calculate the last two days of November at the 30% increase (for minimum wage earners) or the 25% increase (for those previously earning up to RD$20,000). These increases are warranted only in the cases of those companies that had not already raised their employees' wages. The legal monthly minimum wage for companies with capital of up to RD$6.4 million is now RD$6,400, for companies with capital of up to RD$4 million it is RD$4,400, and for companies with capital of up to RD$2 million it is RD$3,900. Different scales apply to free zone, tourism and construction workers.
On 19 November, the US Senate ratified the much-delayed Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2004 (S. 671; H.R. 1047), which introduces a number of significant changes to US trade laws. The bill had already been approved in the US House of Representatives in October. According to Eddy Martinez, the executive director of the Center for Export and Investment of the Dominican Republic (CEI-RD), the legislation is good news for the DR's footwear industry. He said that the newly passed act provides additional incentives and improves preferential access for Dominican footwear exporters to the US market. The bill seeks to help US firms compete globally by suspending duties on input materials used in manufacturing that are not produced domestically and eliminates duties on several hundred specialty items.
The Dominican Medical College, under the direction of Waldo Ariel Suero, announced the start of a three-day strike (Tuesday to Friday) at public and social security hospitals. This will mark the 13th declared work stoppage with Suero at the helm of the physicians' association with no results to show for them. The medics want more than the 30% wage increase that is being considered for public sector workers and are seeking instead a 100% increase. The strike action will affect low-income patients who use the services of the 173 governmental health facilities. During these strikes, the doctors only attend emergency and intensive care patients.
The Department for the Prevention of Corruption (Depreco) is studying the possible involvement of more well-known figures in the Plan Renove fiasco, which involves an alleged RD$1-billion fraud against the state to do with the purchase of more than 5,000 vehicles.
Octavio Lister, the director of the organization, has requested that the driver of the former chief of the military, the now-retired Major General Radhames Zorrilla Ozuna, be questioned. Zorrilla made a name for himself for actively campaigning for the re-election of former President Hipolito Mejia. Lister says that it appears that the driver may have served as Zorilla's frontman. Reports show that Zorrilla was an irregular beneficiary of three units of Plan Renove vehicles. Lister said he has not discarded the notion of questioning Zorrilla himself and that transport union entrepreneur Ramon Perez Figuereo provided valuable information for the investigations.
Lister explained that the government has paid US$32 million on the debt for the vehicles, making it necessary to discover who acted as the real management of the transport scam.
He also said that if Sam Goodson, who resides in the US, does not appear for questioning, his department will seek his extradition from the US, as reported in El Caribe newspaper.
The director of Depreco said that they have three months to prepare the case.
Transport union Conatra's business director, Antonio Marte, complained that the Department for the Prevention of Corruption has excluded several individuals who should form part of the ongoing investigation into the Plan Renove debacle. He said that the names of Juan Hubieres, Blas Peralta, Freddy Mendez, Alfredo Apolinar and Antonio Reynoso (Padre Tono) should also be included in the dossier. Marte speculated that these men have been excluded because they campaigned for President Leonel Fernandez or are providing information so the government can persecute those already included in the case.
Juan Julio (Johnny) Morales, to whom the judge who reviewed the case against board of directors of the Plan Renove transport plan of the past government ordered domiciliary arrest, is missing. According to the Listin Diario, despite being place under domiciliary arrest, Listin reporters could not locate Morales at his Avenida Bolivar 1005 (2005) residence nor at his San Cristobal vacation home.
Meanwhile, District Attorney Jose Manuel Hernandez Peguero advocated that controls be established for future domiciliary arrests and that they be accompanied by impediments to leave the country. These measures would prevent such cases as that of a man from Santiago who, despite an order of house arrest, managed to leave the country. Hernandez Peguero complained that those who receive these court instructions can easily violate them because vigilance has not been established. He said that in the future, an agreement must be made with National Police Chief Major General Manuel de Jesus Perez Sanchez to implement adequate controls.
Department for the Prevention of Corruption director Octavio Lister told the Listin Diario that an order for domiciliary arrest is like rewarding a person who has perpetrated a fraud against the public treasury.
Hoy newspaper is calling attention to plays made by Hanley Ramirez (a Boston Red Sox recruit) who plays locally for the Tigres del Licey and Jose Reyes (a Mets recruit) who plays for the Gigantes del Cibao in the Dominican Professional Baseball League. Hoy's sports editor Franklin Mirabal said that these are two names that will soon be on everyone's lips and that they have the potential to become the next Sammy Sosa and Pedro Martinez.
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