According to the website ultimasnoticias.com.do, the Chamber of Accounts spent RD$73,000 on cigars from January to February 2018. The website describes this as an indication of wastefulness and the lack of frugality in the handling of a state auditing agency that has been asking for more money for their operations.
The Chamber of the Accounts recently was in the media for approving wage increases for its officials. The president of the Chamber of Accounts now makes RD$423,500 a month, the other five judges make RD$379,097. But their perks are just as good to tell from the cigar purchases and others.
The online news portal mentions that in addition to their comfortable wages, the Chamber of Accounts authorized expense account payments for RD$357,170.50 and RD$ 204,415.16 to pay for credit cards of those employed at the Chamber of Accounts.
The report also says employees received RD$2.1 million in supermarket vouchers, of which a non-specified amount was allocated to alcoholic beverages in December. The report mentions multimillion payments being made for entertainment of the officers and employees during the Christmas holidays.
The report says that the Chamber of Accounts every month spends from around RD$900,000 to RD$1.3 million to pay for meals for the employees and officials at restaurants, including Boga Boga, la Casa de la Paella, among others.
The Chamber of Accounts is the government entity in charge of auditing government spending. Recently, the Chamber spokesmen said that they were hard pressed for funds to carry out audits in the high profile cases, such as the government bus corporation, OMSA, Odebrecht contracts, State Sugar Council (CEA), Metro Office (Opret) among others.
The Chamber of Accounts payroll increased from RD$19.6 million in February 2017 when the new judges were appointed to RD$26.5 million. This is in addition to increases also in the support staff payroll.
Hugo Álvarez Pérez is the president of the Chamber of Accounts. Other judges are Pedro Ortiz Hernández, Carlos Noes Tejada (El Chino), Margarita Melenciano and Félix Álvarez Rivera.
In a letter to Ruben Maldonado, president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alvarez explained that a resolution of the previous board had ordered the increases and stimulates annual wage increases for the judges.
Read more in Spanish:
Ultimas Noticias
7 Dias
Diario Libre
22 March 2018
