According to the director of the National Planning Office (ONAPLAN), the government will not approve funds in the 2007 budget for any of the NGOs sponsored by current or former legislators. Guarocuya Felix told reporters from Hoy that President Fernandez had so ordered his office as it prepares the 2007 budget and sent his recommendations to the presidents of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, both of the ruling party. The measure would save RD$300 million. Cardinal Nicolas Lopez Rodriguez favored the elimination of the congressional NGOs.
Eddy Martinez, the head of the DR export and investment office (CEI-RD), has told reporters that five business groups were interested in installing a refinery in the Manzanillo Bay area up in Monte Cristi province. Martinez also said that research showed that of the five, just two have the financial resources to install a facility of this size. Talking to Diario Libre, Martinez said that the studies related to such a project have not yet been concluded but that the investment involved would be in the US$1.0-US$3.0 billion range. As well as the Arab interests, a group from the United States is also interested in developing the project. In spite of the interest generated by the prospect of a new refinery, Martinez said that until all the details are ironed out, nothing was definite. He reminded reporters of the mission from Saudi Arabia that signed a deal with President Hipolito Mejia to build a mega port and a refinery in the same area, only for nothing to come of it.
The Fourth International Congress on Information Technologies, Communication and Distance Learning ended in Santo Domingo yesterday, and one of the conclusions was that it is necessary to close the social gaps before trying to close the digital gaps in any given nation. Access to education was foremost on the minds of the congress attendees, and distance learning was one of the leading topics of discussion. The delegates decided that education without technology was "absurd" and they were betting on distance learning to do the job. However, before talking about technology, the delegates were clear about the need to resolve health, education, food and electricity requirements beforehand. For the delegates, once these requirements were met, distance learning would open the doors to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
In spite of one more death at the Robert Reid Cabral Children's Hospital in Santo Domingo, the Minister for Public Health is reporting a decrease in the number of new cases. According to Listin Diario, Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez reported just six new cases at the Robert Reid Hospital, two at the Luis Eduardo Aybar Hospital, three at the Los Mina Hospital and none at the Moscoso Puello or the Santo Socorro hospitals. Rojas Gomez said that not only had there been a reduction in the number of cases coming into the hospitals, but that fewer cases were confirmed to be dengue fever after laboratory tests.
According to a report from the Plaza de la Salud Hospital, only eight percent of cases of high fevers are finally diagnosed as dengue. This was the result of over 1,000 free tests administered by the hospital.
Cardinal Lopez Rodriguez has said that the government ought to reinforce the security measures in order to put a stop to the recent outbreak of violence that has resulted on more than a dozen violent deaths in the last week. The Cardinal said, "Things were going well. I do not know if there was a let down in the security measures or if violence is on the increase." The Armed Forces Minister, Lieutenant General Ramon Antonio Quino Garcia said that the recent violence is random and isolated from the mainstream, and that the government measures have succeeded in decreasing crime. At a mass at the Fernando Valerio Fort in Santiago, bishop Jesus Maria de Jesus Moya told his congregation that society needed to fight against crime, and the best way of doing this was by creating jobs, education and opportunities. The two prelates and the minister were speaking during ceremonies marking Armed Forces Day in the Dominican Republic.
Electricity Superintendent Francisco Mendez has told a television audience that if the Superintendent of Electricity (SIE) were to apply the letter of the law, the increase of non-regulated electricity users purchasing current directly from the Independent Power Providers (IPPs) would precipitate the collapse of the entire system. Mendez accused the private sector of trying to bring about such a collapse by insisting that the law should be observed and that electricity users in the 200-kilowatt range needed to be provided with non-regulated status, and thus removing them from the electricity distributors' client lists. According to El Caribe, Mendez said that he felt that any non-regulated client should at least pay VAT on electricity (16%) as a sort of contribution to the system and to assist in the recovery efforts. The law exempts electricity charges from paying ITBIS.
He added that when Elena Viyella de Paliza, the president of business association CONEP, demands the application of the provisions of the General Law on Electricity as a means of solving the energy crisis, what she is really asking for is non-regulated status for clients who use 200 kilowatts or more. In such a case, this would cause the energy provided to the poor to triple in cost, according to Mendez, because collections at the electricity distributors would suffer a steep decline. Mendez said that instead of the current RD$900 million in energy subsidies now being spent, the government would have to come up with at least RD$2.0 billion.
Santo Domingo Este (Eastern Santo Domingo) municipal council has approved an application for a RD$36 million loan from the government bank Banco de Reservas in order to pay council members their Christmas bonuses and to help them purchase vehicles. As reported in the Saturday edition of Hoy, the debts carried by the Eastern Santo Domingo municipal council appear to have reached unprecedented levels. The mayor, Juan de los Santos, said that he inherited a debt of RD$250 million when he took office, and that this was the only way to get his administration back on a good footing. A note from municipal council president Cesar Fortuna confirmed that the council had requested RD$500,000 in personal loans for each of the 32 council members in order for them to purchase their own vehicles. Nearly three weeks ago, Finance Minister Vicente Bengoa warned the municipal councils that they were responsible for creating the savings necessary to pay their employees' Christmas bonuses. According to de los Santos, this measure only affects new mayors and council members who were sworn in on 16 August.
Finance Minister Vicente Bengoa was on the offensive over the weekend after being quoted in Friday's newspapers questioning where Business Council (Conep) president Elena Viyella Paliza got her information that the government payroll had increased by 30,000 jobs over the last six months. Bengoa reacted to Viyella's comments on overspending during the American Chamber of Commerce luncheon by saying that businesspeople in this country are more political than politicians, criticizing the fact that they have an opinion on all national issues from human rights to constitutional reforms, and everything in between. (See DR1 Daily News Thursday, 28 September). Bengoa called Viyella's comments political in nature and quipped that the pre-presidential candidate seemed to be Viyella de Paliza and not Milagros Ortiz Bosch.
His statements, though, met with widespread rejection from sectors of the press and independent elements that defended the right of business people to be critical of government.
Inez Aizpun, an editor at Diario Libre, published a column in Saturday's edition of the paper commenting on the Finance Minister's criticism of Elena Viyella's statements on government overspending and other irregularities as an indication that business people wanted to be politicians.
"The problem is not that business people speak up as politicians, but rather that politicians are acting more like businesspeople. And as a matter of fact, it is not their money. It is ours.
"On a daily basis, we see political scandals that are not about ideological debates, sociological differences or challenges to power based on whim. All our scandals are about business deals promoted by, cooked up by, thrown up by politicians who aspire to be businessmen. (We don't even see, like in other countries, sex scandals that at least entertain the public.)
"Have we ever seen a politician discuss politics with another?" she asks, conceding that there might be some superficial discussion of this sort during electoral campaigning. But then she adds: "Once they reach power, the discussions slide to the business end. Health plans? More than dengue they study budgets for building hospitals that sometimes take years to be inaugurated because an access road is missing. Education? They talk about quotes for building schools. There are no discussions about the quality of education, but there are on breakfast rations. Security? Better to talk about quotes than about social policies. State property: The Enade contract that leads one to wonder whether it responds to a vision of state or the nose of someone who smelled a good deal? Public Works? They don't have to quote because all the money is going to the metro and they have to rack their brains to invent something like inspection stickers to reap some new money.
"Bengoa is wrong. There is a need for more talk about politics and less about business. This includes politicians."
For comments, write to IAizpun@diariolibre.com
Now it turns out that El Salvador has a case against Spanish businessman Joaquin Alviz. As reported in Diario Libre, Interpol has a capture order out for him. The Fernandez government recently sought Congressional approval for a vehicular inspection contract that was originally presented during the Mejia administration. Investigations into the contract by the press, revealed it would be another of many that have been proven profitable to their promoters but very detrimental to state finances and taxpayer finances. As a result of stories published in the press, namely in Diario Libre, the Chamber of Deputies rejected the project that had been received with the Ministry of Public Works' blessing.
The Department for the Prevention of Corruption now says that Joaquin Alviz, president of Icasur, the company with the inspection contract, is a fugitive from justice in El Salvador.
The First Joint Tribunal of the National District has ordered the president and other chief executives of the now-defunct Banco Intercontinental to stand trial for irregularities that are said to reach RD$77 billion. With the scheduling of the case on the court's agenda, the case will now proceed in a regular manner. The three- judge court is presided over by Antonio Sanchez Mejia and magistrates Pilar Rufino Diaz and Giselle Mendez. They will meet every Friday, except on the 22 October, and in November the case will be heard on a daily basis, excepting holidays. In a column in today's El Caribe, Jose Baez Guerrero presents a brief summary of the events that led up to the banking crisis of 2003 that affected 20% of the nation's GDP.
Baninter began to experience problems in September 2002. As things came to a head, the Central Bank approved a merger with the Banco del Progreso. However, during the 'due diligence' phase of the operation, so many irregularities and strange operations came to light that the deal fell through, and the Monetary Board had to take control of the bank. On 13 May 2003, then Central Bank governor Jose Lois Malkun gave a speech to the nation outlining what International Monetary Fund investigators had discovered, revealing an immense fraud. A major portion of the fraud was committed at the beginning of 2003 when bank officials were instructed to erase billions of pesos in loans and overages from the books. According to Malkun, a total of RD$17 billion was wiped from the accounts, thus freeing Baninter's president and some of the officials from debt. According to Baez Guerrero the RD$17 billion that Malkun said were stolen are at the root of the case, and this is what the defense lawyers should be explaining, "instead of spreading manure left and right."
According to the Dominican Navy, they looked for twelve people who are believed missing after two illegal boats were damaged at sea, tossing their occupants into the ocean. According to Listin Diario's Sunday edition, a group of 60 people set sail for Puerto Rico aboard two craft, one a wooden, open outboard and the other a catamaran stolen from a local tourist service near Cortecito in Altagracia Province. According to the reports, the victims had been at sea for three days when they were shipwrecked eight kilometers from Cortecito. Most of the survivors were hanging on to makeshift floats when they were rescued by units of the US Coast Guard, helicopters from the Dominican Navy and local fishermen. The Navy recently announced the halting of at least 51 attempts to make illegal crossings. Today's Diario Libre says that the combined elements of the Navy, Air Force and the US Coast Guard have called off further searches for survivors.
Supreme Court judge Hugo Alvarez has revealed that 16 judges in Higuey have been dismissed for handing out sentences that favored drug dealers, and that the same thing has happened in Santiago in the case of eight or ten magistrates. According to the judge, there are still plenty of "benign" magistrates who sell their verdicts. According to the front-page story in today's Hoy, a lack of proper judicial procedures and acts of corruption have caused the Supreme Court to fire "dozens" of magistrates. Alvarez was one of the speakers at a seminar held at the National Forestry School in Jarabacoa. The seminar analyzed what has happened in the two years since the New Penal Code was introduced. Alvarez said that there were still too many lenient judges, even in cases where the accused was caught "red-handed." The Supreme Court justice did point out that, under the new system, far fewer people are held in preventative custody.
According to the Presidential AIDS Council (COPRESIDA), 33,000 children have lost parents as a result of the AIDS epidemic. In addition, 3,000 children are infected with the virus. The report was issued by Dr. Humberto Salazar, the head of the COPRESIDA office. Making things worse is the fact that many of these children do not have birth certificates, thus making their access to education and other opportunities even more difficult. This was the opinion of Tad Palac, the UNICEF representative in the Dominican Republic. This information was disclosed during the speeches given by Salazar and Palac at the local celebration of Children's Rights Day in the DR. The program marked the start of the Global Campaign against AIDS in children. The ceremonies also announced the government's program to fight AIDS in children, as outlined by First Lady Margarita Cedeno de Fernandez.
The Dominican Medical Association (CMD) has said that many Cubans are practicing medicine without a license. Dr. Enriquillo Matos, the CDM president, said that dozens of people are doing this. He also pointed out that the province of Maria Trinidad Sanchez was a focal point of his observations. The medical board cited eight Cubans by name and also named the medical centers where these doctors are working. Dr. Rafael Chalas, the CMD provincial director, said that "any foreign doctor can practice", which is very difficult for Dominican doctors to do in other countries. Both doctors pointed out that in order for a medical doctor to practice in the Dominican Republic, one must first be a member of the CMD and certify all their qualifications with the UASD and the Ministry of Higher Education. They asked for Public Health officials to act in the case. Cubans working at the Centro Medico Espaillat-Ubiera in Nagua were cited, as were doctors working at the Centro Medico Costa Norte and the Centro Medico Diagnostico-Terapeutico.
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