?No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers,? he said. ?No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.?
These words spoken in Accra, the capital of Ghana, in West Africa, seem to ring so true for this country.
I was recently talking to a colleague who happens to be one of the leading cultural lights of Santiago and perhaps the nation. He had received a RD$3.0 million grant for a major cultural project in Santiago. The first calls he got were from: The general at the fort, asking for 50 thou, the commander of the Air Base, looking for a similar sum and the local police commander looking for another 50 thou....This is ingrained corruption. They think it is their prerogative to get this money...
Another person I know, quite well, has a brother who is into alternative energy technology...in order to get a project for a wind farm to be approved, he needed to up 100 grand US$!! to the, get this, Head of the government's Alternative Energy Committee!!!
I can probably fill up this page's broadband allowance telling you these things, and I am sure that many reading this have their own stories. All of which drives Obama's words home for us here in the DR.
Perhaps if we harp enough, talk enough, write to the on-line news media (all of the local papers have on line editions with commentaries...make use of them) some of this can change..
I, for one, will send that quote to the editor of at least one paper...
HB
These words spoken in Accra, the capital of Ghana, in West Africa, seem to ring so true for this country.
I was recently talking to a colleague who happens to be one of the leading cultural lights of Santiago and perhaps the nation. He had received a RD$3.0 million grant for a major cultural project in Santiago. The first calls he got were from: The general at the fort, asking for 50 thou, the commander of the Air Base, looking for a similar sum and the local police commander looking for another 50 thou....This is ingrained corruption. They think it is their prerogative to get this money...
Another person I know, quite well, has a brother who is into alternative energy technology...in order to get a project for a wind farm to be approved, he needed to up 100 grand US$!! to the, get this, Head of the government's Alternative Energy Committee!!!
I can probably fill up this page's broadband allowance telling you these things, and I am sure that many reading this have their own stories. All of which drives Obama's words home for us here in the DR.
Perhaps if we harp enough, talk enough, write to the on-line news media (all of the local papers have on line editions with commentaries...make use of them) some of this can change..
I, for one, will send that quote to the editor of at least one paper...
HB