Using the title of an old song, economist Bernardo Vega analyses the presidential trip to Spain in highly critical terms in today’s El Caribe. The trip will represent the “first” visit of a Dominican President to Spain since that made by Trujillo to the Franco-era Spain, a historic embarrassment for both nations. A Spanish newspaper announced that Spain will absolve a $200 million euro debt owed by the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador, in a gesture aimed at making the troop dispersal to Iraq more palatable. Vega warns, however, that the announced agreement for prisoners to serve their terms in their own nation’s jail will be a heavy load for the country since there are many more Dominicans in jail in Spain than there are Spaniards in jail here. He hopes the transfer would be conditioned to the prisoner’s acceptance since Spanish jails are more amenable than those of their Dominican counterparts. The economist also points out that this could set a terrible precedent, as the United States might seek similar treatment to thereby alleviate the financial burden of their prison system to the detriment of our local jails.
An important point to be discussed in Madrid will be the Paris renegotiations of the current Dominican debts with Spain, with the Dominican Republic having become more indebted over the past years to Madrid than to Washington. The multiple loans from two private commercial Spanish banks with the endorsement of a semi-official insurance will produce enormous scandals in the near future, according to the former ambassador to the USA.
Bernardo Vega also looks at the strong pressures that Honorato Lopez Isla, the No. 2 executive in Union Fenosa, exercised when representing the company in talks here, and asks why Lopez did not explain to the local Spanish press that outside auditors had found that the Dominican Union Fenosa subsidiaries had overvalued loans and services with sister companies in order to increase the book value of their supposed losses. Vega also comments that Lopez did not mention he met with former Chamber of Deputies leader ‘Lila’ Alburquerque to discuss the Electricity Law when being studied by the Chamber of Deputies [this resulted in considerable changes in favor of the company]. Vega closes his editorial by stating that a return to state control would be to go from the frying pan into the fire and that an immediate tender for other companies to control the distributors’ operations is the only solution.