The president of the Dominican Association of Public School Teachers (ADP), Eduardo Hidalgo, says the union is not obliged to provide financials to the general public as requested by the president of the Dominican Alliance Against Corruption (Adocco), Julio César de la Rosa Tiburcio. Adocco has requested the ADP share financial information on spending from January 2012 to September 2017 regarding discounts made to the public school teachers for payment of their membership quotas. Hidalgo instead says he is giving Adocco 72 hours to desist from the request. He says the ADP is a union registered at the Ministry of Labor that is only accountable to its members.
Tiburcio is requesting the financials after receiving complaints from teachers who have said they are unaware of what ADP does with the money discounted from their wages.
Tiburcio responded to the refusal by Hidalgo of the ADP who argues they cannot be held accountable because they are receiving the funds from the Ministry of Education. Tiburcio says that the ADP receives funds from the Ministry of Education that acts as their retention agent and not directly from the public school teachers that are the union members.
The retentions were known about after an audit carried out by the Ministry of Education.
12 October 2017
