Vice President Ortiz Bosch has accused former President Leonel Fernandez of violating the Constitution and the law by taking out three international loans without the authorization of Congress. She said in a press conference that the Fernandez government used a US$12.6 million loan to finance the so-called “pollito” taxis, US$3 million for equipment to automate the Post Office and US$2.3 million for the purchase of equipment for the Comedores Economicos, the government-run institution that provides low cost meals. A PLD spokesman responded that the loans had already been authorized by Congress when it approved the Programa de Cooperacion Financiera Hispano Dominicano that provided the framework for the loans. The PRD government has been criticized for its cabinet borrowing spree of hundreds of millions of dollars from private Spanish banks. This practice has even been criticized by Andres Dauhajre, the new government officer in charge of issuing the US$500 million sovereign bonds, who feels that government borrowing should be centralized.
