Three of the five members of the Chamber of Accounts (CC) plenary signed an agreement to consolidate a Chamber of Accounts at the service of transparency and institutionalism on 14 September 2022.
Upon signing the document, the three members agreed to a purge of human resources at the institution. The agreement is signed amid strange turbulence at the body that serves as external control of the state’s use of public resources.
Janel Andres Ramirez Sanchez, president of the CC, and members Mario Arturo Fernandez Burgos and Elsa Peña Peña agree to work for the renewed consolidation of the body, as well as for the establishment of four audit directorates; the implementation in two months of an online budget monitoring program; the strengthening of the legal department, among other issues. The two other members of the Chamber of Accounts, María Catano Ramírez and Tomasina Tolentino de Mckenzie, vice-president and secretary, did not subscribe the agreement.
Peña Peña confirmed what the president of the Senate, Eduardo Estrella, said on the previous day, Tuesday, in the meeting with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfredo Pacheco. She said there had never been any talk of any kind of harassment, interpellation or impeachment.
Peña Peña does not know where these accusations come from and speculated the intention may originate from sectors that feel threatened by the work the auditors have been carrying out. Furthermore, she stated that she has never observed in the president or in member Mario Fernandez any behavior against ethics and morals.
Despite the statements, former ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) senator Yvan Lorenzo, insisted that despite the declarations of Senate president Eduardo Estrella and Elsa Peña Peña, the plenary of the Chamber of Accounts be investigated. Lorenzo urged the Public Ministry and the National Congress to act and open a serious investigation into the scandal, because “these are embarrassing facts that the national press and social networks have echoed”.
Another who also understands that the investigations of the incumbent members of the CC must follow their course, is the PRM senator Lenin Valdez. “Nothing can be considered closed here, I understand that it is an issue that we must follow up,” said the legislator, while pondering that the president of the body is a serious and hardworking person.
For his part, the reformist deputy Rogelio Alfonso Genao Lanza, president of the Permanent Commission CC in the Lower House, assured that there is still no date to invite the members of the CC to a meeting in Congress.
Read more in Spanish:
El Caribe
Esta Noche con Mariasela
El Dia
15 September 2022