Wanted: 68 OMSA buses somewhere in Santo Domingo and Santiago. The Pandora’s Box that is the Metropolitan Office for Bus Service (OMSA) is beginning to open up. In addition to searching for 68 buses that have disappeared, the new officials are also planning to reduce personnel and are investigating a possible fraud that involves drivers and onboard cashiers. Both OMSA and the General Accounting Office are performing an audit of the organization’s inventory, both in Santo Domingo and in Santiago, in order to find out who has the 68 missing vehicles. According to OMSA, there are 54 units missing in Santo Domingo and 14 missing in Santiago. Word has it that they were “loaned” to institutions and persons of some influence. Ignacio Ditren, the head of OMSA once more, told reporters from El Caribe that once the units are identified as “missing” he “will proceed as the law requires.” Just as the chief of police did yesterday, Ditren gave a 72-hour grace period for those with buses or other OMSA property to return them. Ditren told reporters that of the 926 buses belonging to the institution, only 198 were functioning when he took over a little over a week ago. He said that today there are 256 units operating on the streets. El Caribe had revealed the disappearance of the buses based on a study by done by Hamlet Herman, and while the case of the 14 missing buses in Santiago was also revealed, the former authorities had done nothing to solve the issue. Ditren said that he and his people began monitoring the use of fuel and counting the number of passengers that use each bus. Ditren denounced what he called a “fraudulent association between drivers and cashiers that permits money to escape.” He said that between “40% and 50% of the money collected by the buses was ending up in the pockets of individuals.” Ditren also announced the arrival of technicians from the Mercedes Benz factory in Brazil, who will work in conjunction with Dominican technicians and report on the conditions of the rest of the fleet. He said that representatives from Hyundai are also in the country to help resolve the issues for those units.