The Ministry of Agriculture reported that at least 55 of the 200 greenhouses built at government expense were distributed to officers in the past Mejia administration and accused these people of violating the Penal Code and the rules governing the Law of Civil Service and the Administrative Career. In a press conference, the deputy minister of agriculture and director of the programs that deal with marketing and frozen foods (PROFRIN), Eusebio Guzman said that a brother of former Agriculture Minister Eligio Jaquez and a lot of his friends received greenhouses at government expense. Jaquez responded that officers of the current administration also received greenhouses, but he did not identify them. As reported in Hoy newspaper, other beneficiaries of greenhouses valued at US$292,000, according to Guzman were former Agriculture Minister Jose Fabelo; Carlos Baez and Sergio Uribe, former directors of PROFRIN; Leonidas Batista, the former head of the Dominican Coffee Council (CODOCAFE), former deputy minister of Environment, Andres Rafael Escarraman; Jose Rafael Escarraman, an assistant at the National Forestry School; Ramon Urena Torres, another deputy minister of Environment; the former governor of San Jose de Ocoa, Leovigildo Bello Guerrero. Even the former Presidential Press Secretary, Luis Gonzalez Fabra got one, according to Guzman. The whole thing is “a national embarrassment”, with one family getting as many as three or four greenhouses and other using fronts to obtain the installations, as reported.