The Senate has rejected a US$368 million loan for the recovery of the Ozama and Isabela rivers signed by the Technical Secretariat of the Presidency, Abitral Financial Associated and Italian Rio Ozama consortium. The Senate suggested that the Executive Branch find better technical, organizational and social solutions to the problem of the pollution of the Ozama and Isabela rivers and its slum neighborhoods. The president of the Senate Commission of Finances called the financing a vulgar fraud in the making, as reported in the Listín Diario. The Senate ascertained that the Abitral Financing company had only four employees in a small office in Italy. The Senate has approved millions in loans for projects promoted by small offices employing two or three employees in Spain, as El Caribe newspaper has denounced in the past.
