2004 – Page 76

In his inaugural speech on 16 August, President Leonel Fernandez promised to begin a period of austerity that would reduce political patronage in government jobs. “We must eliminate the deputy minister positions in government that have not been written into the laws of each ministry,” he avowed. Listin Diario political commentator Orlando Gil writes today …

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President Leonel Fernandez signed Law 288-04, otherwise known as the tax reform, that is intended to provide the government with a windfall of RD$22 billion in additional revenues. The law will take effect on Thursday, 30 September in Santo Domingo and on Saturday in the provinces, according to the Listin Diario. The provision increases the …

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Fernando Garcia, of the Ferreteria Americana and the president of ONEC, which represents large department stores in the DR, told Hoy newspaper that the buying power of the population has been reduced by 40%. He said that despite the impact of the tax reform and the augmented ITBIS from 12% to 16% consumer item prices …

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Engineer Radhames Segura, the administrator of the Corporacion Dominicana de Empresas Electricas Estatales (CDEEE), told Hoy newspaper that he has been instructed by President Leonel Fernandez to renegotiate the Madrid Accord, the agreement that fixed the prices for power purchased from generators. He said he will also be reviewing the buyback of Union Fenosa power …

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The president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Jorge Subero Isa, said that citizens must study the new penal procedures code to understand it. He said that as per the new law, the police can no longer arrest citizens in raid-like operations, nor can anyone be detained without a relative present. Subero also told Diario …

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Hoy newspaper’s online edition was updated this afternoon to reveal the names of those National Police generals and colonels who illicitly obtained luxury vehicles that were stolen, recovered, and never returned to their legitimate owners. The most prominent name on the list of offenders is that of retired General Jaime Marte Martinez, the former chief …

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Servio Tulio Castanos Guzman was appointed the new director of the Fundacion Institucionalidad y Justicia (FINJUS), after predecessor Jose Alfredo Rizek left to become the president of INDOTEL. A report in Diario Libre today says that Castanos is a summa cum laude graduate of law from the state university UASD, a well-known professor of law, …

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President Hipolito Mejia decreed that the company Cheng Chua y Chow be authorized to use 60 meters of state territory to build part of their Cabanas Hey Okey, where rooms are rented out for hours. As reported in Diario Libre, Decree 747-04 was issued on 5 August 2004, 11 days before Mejia left government, to …

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At least five people were poisoned, of which three have died, after eating a fatal lunch in Cotui. The group was comprised of laborers working at a Cotui farm in El Hato. The deceased were identified as Tomas Rojas, 34, Crucito Baez Nolasco, 56, and Jose Eduvirgen de la Cruz, 58. Two of the men …

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Film producer Jose Enrique “Pinky” Pintor fulfilled his promise to premiere his film “La carcel La Victoria, el cuarto hombre” in the Dominican Republic at the La Victoria jail where it was filmed. The Listin Diario reports today that some 5,000 inmates gathered in the ball field of the prison to view the film on …

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