The leading private business association CONEP released a statement yesterday, voicing support for, and offering co-operation with, the government’s handling of the Baninter affair, while calling on the judicial process against the accused individuals to be handled fairly and independently. Labeling the Baninter collapse as an isolated case that should not shake faith in the rest of the Dominican business sector, CONEP president Elena Viyella de Paliza expressed confidence in the Dominican financial sector and praised the ?integrity, professionalism and responsible administration? of savers’ resources. Viyella de Paliza attributed the country’s recent economic ills to the Baninter situation, and warned that effects such as the continuing devaluation of the peso could only worsen the plight of the country’s most vulnerable sectors. She called for more regulation of financial institutions, and said that the ?full weight of the law? should be brought down on those connected in any way to the alleged fraud at Baninter.
Similar communiqu?s were put out by other leading private sector bodies, such as the Dominican Republic Association of Commercial Banks (ABCRD) and the National Association of Young Entrepeneurs (ANJE). For his part, the executive vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce, William Malamud, stressed the need for more transparency and called for renewed confidence in the finance sector.