El Nacional newspaper in its Friday issue says that the government paid contractor Margarita Gomez RD$241.8 million for the furnishing and interior decoration of the Supreme Court of Justice. For her part, decorator Gomez has issued a press release stating that she had been paid RD$106 million. According to the newspaper, Gomez left out the most recent check for RD$66.7 million she received on 1 March 2005.
This is in addition to the RD$65.8 million the government had already paid the previous contractor for the decoration, Bohenco, as reported in Friday’s El Nacional newspaper.
The scandalously high cost of the decoration of the Supreme Court led President Leonel Fernandez himself, who reportedly authorized Margarita Gomez to do the decorating, to head a commission to look into the actual costs.
Public Works Minister Freddy Perez has remained silent regarding the Supreme Court case. Meanwhile, news reports indicate that deputy minister Carlos Polibio (Kalil) Michel Presbot, in charge of the Supreme Court completion project, has been banned from entering his offices at the Ministry of Public Works and that several of his staff have been suspended.
As reported in Hoy newspaper, Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said that politics aside, anyone who made mistakes in the construction and equipping of the building would be held responsible.
The governmental Accounting Office (Camara de Cuentas) head is also reviewing what the government has spent on the building. But state lawyer Julio Cury told Diario Libre that what the Accounting Office is doing is purely blackmail. He said that so far, all the office has requested is the Supreme Court’s flow chart and a list of the 40 contractors.
El Nacional reported that this week freight trucks with furniture and equipment for the Supreme Court were unloading despite the inventory and other investigations ongoing.
The newspaper indicates that this week the auditors noted that furniture was missing in some offices, which could have led to the restocking of furniture.
El Nacional reports that on 8 March, in a written document to President Leonel Fernandez decoration contractor Margarita Gomez reported on the “formal delivery of the decoration of the Supreme Court of Justice building.” In her proposal of 28 October 2004, she had committed to deliver the furniture and complete the decoration in 30 days. President Fernandez inaugurated the building on 7 January 2005.
Nevertheless, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Works justified the new delivery of furniture on grounds that the contractors had not yet finished their work, as per the El Nacional report.
As reported in El Caribe, technical director Rolando Rodriguez says that the contract with Bohenco was rescinded because with only weeks to go for the inauguration, the company had only furnished 10% of the facility. Rodriguez explained the arrival of three container freight trucks to the Supreme Court yesterday with new furnishings by saying that the furnishings had been ordered from abroad and had just arrived.