The Integrative Fiduciary Assessment of the Dominican Republic carried out by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank establishes that the Dominican political system is based on extensive presidential prerogatives with few checks from other sectors in government, to the extent that there is virtually no limit on the President’s power to grant direct public contracts, without tenders, as reported in Hoy newspaper on Friday. “This authority is aggravated by limited controls, and can be used to repay favors to political allies and those making financial contributions,” said the World Bank and the IDB.
Furthermore, the assessment indicated that many government posts are filled for personal reasons instead of being based on competitive recruitments and technical skills. The government does not have a professional civil service that has brought as consequence inefficient administrative practices, limited actions to fulfill the rules, generalized acceptance of the lack of fulfillment and a decline in public trust in the government. It comments that there is a legacy of authoritarianism in government that affects all aspects of government, creating vicious circles and making it difficult for the better practices to prevail and serve as catalysts for improvements in the system. The report indicates that there is little public access to quality information and low levels of responsibility in government, as well as proliferation of duplicated functions of departments that only rarely coordinate their efforts. It also points out cases of collapse of Baninter, which reflected the weakness of the regulatory controls, and the buyback of two power distributors.
The report was distributed at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday. As reported in the Listin Diario, the IDB’s future funding program will depend on the authorities acting on the recommendations made in the report to make public administration more transparent, and to confront corruption. IDB representative Moises Pineda warned that “we cannot continue to work in the DR from now on if the principles that have been outlined in this document are not fully put into practice.”
Meanwhile, the World Bank’s Christina Malberg said that with the setting up of the Ethics and Corruption Combating Commission, the government has shown that the topics of governance and institutional strengthening are important and that the political and economic costs of not taking rapid action are incalculable.