President Hipolito Mejia appointed Jesús Félix Jiménez as new director of the Departamento de Prevención de la Corrupción, a department that is under the Attorney General’s office. The department is responsible for investigating complaints of irregularities in the handling of government funds. The first cases of complaints against corruption while in office have been deposited against 12 former officers of the Civil Aviation Board, including two former directors, Vitelio Mejía Ortiz and Armando Castillo. Corruption claims primarily revolve around the management of the Technical Cooperation Project that was convened so that Dominican airplanes could again fly to the US with the lifting of Category III. According to the complaint that was presented by the Alianza Dominicana contra la Corrupción, the Civil Aviation Board preferred an OACI program that reportedly cost US$16 million to the state, and rejected a proposal by a US firm that guaranteed to restate the DR aviation for US$200,000. Mejia has denied he benefited from the project, as he says audits to the CAB under his management have shown.
