The State, because of a lack of supervision and a lack of controls, has not been able to receive over many years the plentiful income derived from the operations of the Dominican Refinery under Shell Company management, as reported in Hoy newspaper. Victor Grimaldi, a former Controller General of the Dominican Republic, told the newspaper that audits have shown major sums of money were not turned over to the government. In addition to the RD$227 million that is recognized by the Shell Company as “retained earnings” for the years up to 1995, an audit done by Coopers & Lybrand and Fernandez Pellerano & Associates showed that RD$365 million was owed for petroleum differentials during just 1994 and 1995.
In 1997, Radhames Segura, at the time president of the refinery, announced that the government had recovered RD$272 million of the RD$365 million. According to Grimaldi, it is possible that the Dominican State has not received billions of pesos because of its lack of investigative power and the impossibility to properly supervise the accounting of the refinery that is jointly owned by the Dominican state and Shell.