Sociologist Ramon Tejada Holguin wonders in his contribution to El Caribe newspaper today what President Hipolito Mejia was referring to when he said he had fulfilled 99% of his 2000 presidential campaign promises. Tejada Holguin says he has consulted several statistical experts to try to make sense of the statement. He requested values that would have to be attributed to the electricity crisis, hospitals crisis, the cost of living, the political crisis caused by the incumbent administration?s quest to seek re-election, the way in which three judges of the Supreme Court were recently appointed, the selection of a Central Electoral Board with strong ties to the governmental PPH, the extension of the debt in terms of time and size, the government?s indifference to the demands of citizens, the non-existence of an anti-corruption policy, etc. He asks which mathematic model can explain the claimed Presidential successes. He says the Mejia government claims the start of the social security scheme as a success, but wonders what happened to the coverage of the poor that the PRD defined as priority sectors and those who stood to benefit most from the social security program.
He says that Mejia maintains he had to face adverse circumstances, such as the bank fraud cases. Tejada Holguin says in order to make this claim, the authorities would have had to have handled the situation correctly, and questions whether this was so. He comments that when the governor of the Central Bank went public with the Baninter banking scandal, he admitted the existence of a parallel banking operation since 1989. ?Then why, when he became President in 2000, weren?t measures to remedy the situation taken?? he asks. He reminds that in July 2002, the monetary authorities had granted the banking sector RD$174 million in advances and discounts, but by August that amount had increased to RD$574 million, leaping to RD$2.73 billion by September and RD$6.58 billion by December, five months before the case was brought into the open. Tejada Holguin criticizes that the authorities did not respect what was established in the monetary law and instead protected the deposits of all the large depositors in Baninter. ?To put it plainly, there was not, nor is there, the capital to implement the social security scheme to benefit the poor, but there was money to rescue the big depositors affected by a bank fraud,? he chides.
He concludes by wondering which promises ? and to whom they were made ? are in the 99% Mejia fulfilled. ?67% of the voters of this country felt it was not their promises. I hope this serves as an example to the incoming authorities.?