2003 – Page 56

Hoy today criticizes the government’s call for a consensus on paying the increased exchange rate commission. The newspaper says that in the past, there has been no official interest in reaching an agreement with the business sector and the writer recalls how the government discarded the recommendations made by a private and public sector mixed …

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Santo Domingo City Mayor Roberto Salcedo (PLD) received an approval rate of 69% from potential voters interviewed for the October CID-Gallup poll. Salcedo ranked second only to the mayor of Tegucigalpa, Honduras in the category of Central American city mayors. The regulation of garbage collection is mentioned as Salcedo’s greatest achievement by 54% of those …

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The Dominican ambassador in Caracas, Manuel Morales Lama, has expressed optimism for a diplomatic reconciliation between the two countries, currently locked into a dispute over alleged Dominican complicity in a conspiracy against the Venezuelan government, which led to the present suspension of Venezuelan oil exports to the DR. Morales Lama feels, however, that an end …

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The Supreme Court has ruled that Environment Minister Frank Moya Pons was not guilty of defamation or injury towards former Listin Diario director Miguel Franjul. The two were engaged in a war of words over the newspaper’s allegations that the government was allowing the environmentally sensitive area of the sand dunes at Bani, in the …

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News reports carry the story of the eight-person dwelling of the Benzan Mendez family in San Juan de la Maguana. El Caribe newspaper says that dishware and glasses are known to take flight and crash against the walls. All the neighbors are reportedly praying for the family that was visited by a priest. While the …

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The Monetary Board has raised the commission rate charged by Customs on imports to 10%, from its previous rate of 4.75%. This is the latest attempt by the authorities to procure sufficient resources to make the agreement with the International Monetary Fund viable. The Monetary Board says that Customs’ new rate is a temporary measure …

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Hoy newspaper observes that the increase in the exchange commission’s rate from 4.75 to 10%, as ordered yesterday by the Monetary Board, contradicts Article 85 of the Monetary Law of November 2002. The Monetary Law had begun a procedure, due to have been launched this month, by which the commission rate would have been gradually …

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In a related development, the Senate yesterday approved the 2% surcharge on imports that is designed to remain in place until September 2004, as well as an increase in the tourist’s departure tax from US$10 to US$20. Both measures were introduced by Presidential decree more than three months ago.

Elena Viyella de Paliza, president of private business association CONEP, has called on the government to restore its relations with the International Monetary Fund, which suspended its disbursements to the DR in September in reaction to the government’s sudden announcement that it would buy back the power distribution companies previously controlled by Spanish company Union …

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Hoy newspaper quotes a business leader as saying that 400,000 private-sector jobs have been lost as a result of the economic crisis. According to the estimate of the former president of private business association CONEP, Marino Ginebra, stated while this was occurring, “the government was persisting in its efforts to sustain the peso artificially.” Ginebra …

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