The Senate postponed until the next Tuesday session the plenary to choose the new members of the Chamber of Accounts (Government Auditors). The Chamber of Deputies sent five lists with three candidates each to the Senate to make the selection. In the past, the Senate has chosen one from each list. This time, the senators are contemplating choosing from the complete list of 15 candidates.
The chair of the Chamber of Accounts special committee of the Senate, Antonio Tavares Guzmán (PRM-Santo Domingo), requested more time. During the closing session on Thursday, 8 April 2021, he explained that due to the recess of the celebration for Easter, time had not been enough and asked to postpone the election for next week.
Special committee member, senator José del Castillo Saviñón (Barahona-PLD) says it is likely the Senate will choose from the total of the 15 persons pre-selected by the Chamber of Deputies.
In an interview with Diana Lora and Patricia Solano of La Cuestión, Super7FM, Castillo Saviñón explained that the senators are committed to deliver on the promise for reform and independence of criteria in the selection of new members. He said there is the promise to not elect persons with strong political party ties, and that due diligence is carried out to ascertain the ethics, professionalism and work capacity of the persons to be chosen by the Senate.
While the ruling Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) is simple majority in the Senate, to choose the members of the Chamber of Accounts a vote of two thirds of the senators present is required. This means the PRM does not have technically have the sufficient votes and the vote of other political parties could determine the members of the Chamber of Accounts. There are 32 senators.
Castillo Saviñón is optimistic the nation will know who are the members of the Chamber of Accounts no later than next week.
Art. 80 of the Constitution establishes as an exclusive duty of the senators “the appointing of the members of the Chamber of Accounts, by a majority of two-thirds of the senators present, from the lists of three candidates submitted by the Chamber of Deputies.”
The persons on the shortlists approved by the Chamber of Deputies are:
Roberto Martínez Villanueva, María Aurelina Estévez and Elsa Peña Peña.
Remón Méndez Acosta, Karen Gisela Castillo and Tomasina Tolentino.
Aura Celeste Fernández, Mario Fernández Burgos and Odri Altagracia.
Janel Andrés Ramírez Sánchez, Juan Luis Selimán and Yovanny Abrahan Tabar Rosario.
Roberto Leonel Rodríguez, Elsa María Catano and Ramon Eminio Sarante.
Meanwhile, a Citizen Manifest is circulating with the signatures of prominent Dominicans that demand Congress deliver on the promise of change made by the new government authorities.
Almost 200 prominent citizens from different wakes of life have signed the document expressing their concern on the track record of some of the candidates on the Chamber of Deputies’ shortlists.
The document says the Chamber of Deputies has included persons representing the exact opposite of the criteria of independence and ethical commitment strongly demanded by the Dominican society.
“Some of the names proposed by the Chamber of Deputies cause great concern and generate a high rate of rejection. We are talking about prominent and active members of political parties, or a person favored by the nepotism practiced by a controversial minister of the past government or the spouse of a member of the current Monetary Board,” reads the Manifest.
The manifest warns that included in the shortlists are people who, when in government were known for lowly and aberrant political practices.
Among the names appearing in the communiqué are the lawyer Bartolomé Pujals, the former baseball player Moisés Alou; Dominican ambassador to Spain, Juan Bolívar Díaz and Dominican ambassador to UNESCO, Andres L. Mateo. It is also signed by journalists Fausto Rosario, Nuria Piera and Altagracia Salazar, and businessmen Celso Marranzini and Mario Bergés and former congresswoman Guadalupe Valdez.
The Senate is expected to choose next week the five members of the Chamber of Accounts from among 15 persons grouped in the five shortlists by the Chamber of Deputies.
Altagracia Salazar commented in her 9 April 2021 morning radio talk show that the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) controls the Justice Branch of government and is taking actions to enable the excluding of key evidence of corruption in the Medina administration. The evidence would be in the documentation seized at the Chamber of Accounts during the raid by the state prosecutors.
Former legal advisor to former President Hipolito Mejia (2000-2004) has shared details on the the battle to avoid a return to the politicizing of the Chamber of Accounts and the different conflicts of interests among those that are candidates for the new Chamber of Accounts during an interview with Acento TV.
Read more in Spanish:
N Digital
Acento
Hoy
El Caribe
Altagracia Salazar sin Maquillaje
Acento TV
9 April 2021