Civic Participation and several other civic society organizations submitted to control agencies of the government a request for investigating whether the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht financed the election campaign of President Danilo Medina. In the document submitted on Tuesday, 2 May 2017, the same organizations criticized Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez for being a member of the Central Committee of the PLD and a PLD political activist in the election campaign of President Medina, as both appoints are in violation of the Fundamental Law of the Public Ministry.
In addition to Participación Ciudadana, other organizations that expressed their concerns about the apparent conflict of interest in the Attorney General’s office were Centro Juan XXIII, Fundación Masada and Santiago Somos Todos.
The civic organizations demand an investigation to ascertain whether Odebrecht financed the 2012 presidential campaign, and if the Brazilian company made available resources to finance the change of the 2010 Constitution by re-instating consecutive re-election clause in the 2015 Constitution that enabled President Medina to run for re-election in the 2016 election.
The civic organizations are demanding an investigation into whether the ruling PLD party received funds from Odebrecht S.A. through the companies Polis Caribe SRL and “CINE&ART2013, SRL”, both owned by Brazilian publicist Joao Santana. The civic organizations believe that Odebrecht officials have admitted during judicial hearings held in Brazil to having made these types of payments in the Dominican Republic.
The groups say that the ties between Odebrecht and the PLD are made after the party directors selected Joao Santana as their campaign advisor. However, financial statements presented to the Central Electoral Board (JCE) indicate that there is no evidence of payments being made to Santana. Both Santana and his wife have been sentenced to eight years in prison in Brazil.
As reported, the claim presented by the civic organizations describes the tracing of bank transfers from Swiss and Peruvian banks to the Dominican Republic.
In the Dominican Republic, Jean Alain Rodriguez has been at the head of the judicial investigations of the Odebrecht bribery and overpricing scandal case and has yet to implicate anyone in the scandal. The lack of movement on the bribery case in this country is in contrast to rapid pace of investigations that are occurring in other Latin American countries where similar accusations against Odebrecht and government officials have been made.
The complaints were deposited at the Chamber of Deputies, Central Electoral Board, Controller General Office, Audit Chamber and the Public Defendant Office.
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3 May 2017
