Participación Ciudadana, the civic society watchdog group, has published a list of the “problems” is has found in the Chamber of Accounts, the entity that audits the central government’s ministries, agencies and departments. Participación Ciudadana expressed concern about the situation in the Chamber of Accounts of the Dominican Republic, acknowledging that for more than a year “irregularities” have been affecting the key auditing body.
“We took the decision to request and managed to meet, both with the Plenary and with some of its members individually, after receiving information that particular interests have made impossible the necessary agreements to bring this institution out of the disrepute in which it had fallen in previous administrations,” states Participacion Ciudadana.
Participación Ciudadana says it has acted given the crucial moments the country is going through in the fight against corruption and impunity. Participacion Ciudadana says that it seeks to serve as a mediator among the members of the audit body, whose credibility is crucial for it to fulfill its mission.
Participación Ciudadana identified the problems as:
- Some members of the Chamber of Accounts, headed by its president, have strongly questioned more than a 100 audits executed and left unsigned by the past administration, which do not meet the requirements and lack technical quality. These audits have been signaled out by previous and current Chamber of Account members as having been made up to hide situations and benefit officials who have incurred in irregularities.
- The Chamber of Accounts does not require specialized training in auditing, neither of its members nor of its personnel, therefore, the great majority are only accountants — this explains its traditional inefficiency in detecting irregularities and the theft of public resources.
- As a consequence of this and the different governments’ interests, the audits carried out until a few years ago did not comply with international standards in this area. These standards have been implemented in the current management of the Chamber of Accounts, resulting in the special reports that have supported the files that are currently before the courts.
- A large part of the most qualified personnel of the institution has resigned, both because of low salaries and because of the environment of innumerable pressures in which they have to carry out their work.
- Some of the current plenary members have rejected the president’s proposals to organize the work in 4 specialized areas, headed by expert auditors selected by competition. In nearly three years it has not been possible to evaluate, renew or complete the staff.
- Some defendants who have enormous financial resources hire private firms to try to discredit the audits of the Chamber of Accounts, while others who are under investigation try to influence in their favor, through personnel who in the past served their interests and who remain in their positions. In the meantime, the indicted or potential indictees are the only ones who could benefit from the crisis situation affecting the institution.
- The governance scheme of this organization is conducive to paralysis, stagnation, indiscipline and collusion. The president of the body is only the president in name, since he does not have the authority to take the slightest administrative measure, and is unable to appoint or dismiss even the personnel closest to him.
- The staff of the Chamber of Accounts is not subject to evaluation or performance measurement, and worse, it is said that many work for the private interests of current or former officials, without fear of being removed because they have a structure of protection and safeguard around them.
- The same people within the plenary have blocked attempts to open competitions to fill more than 100 vacant positions that are needed to fulfill the large number of jobs and for which the Chamber of Accounts has the resources available.
- A project to automate and modernize processes in order to make audits more efficient and of higher quality has also been blocked. RD$500 million that were made available for this purpose have not been used because the same people in the plenary have opposed it.
Participación Ciudadana stated: “Our sad conclusion is that the situation of ungovernability in which the Chamber of Accounts has fallen into is unsustainable. For the third consecutive occasion, this important body has been affected by internal situations and external pressures that prevent it from fully performing its functions”.
“It is fair to point out that not all the members of this and previous plenary sessions have incurred in criminal, ethically reprehensible or inefficient behavior. Participación Ciudadana is aware of the efforts that some have made to straighten out situations. In fact, at least one member of the previous Chamber of Auditors warned and made her objections known and even denounced the difficult situations she experienced, although in the end they were all dismissed. Also in the current plenary there are people who are genuinely committed to doing things right”.
Participación Ciudadana called for the National Congress to commit itself to the part of responsibility assigned to it by the Constitution and revise the law by which the members of the Chamber of Accounts are chosen to make this body more operative and governable. For their part, the current members of the Chamber of Accounts are in the obligation to reach agreements that will get the institution out of its current crisis because, otherwise, they run the risk of being put on trial and repeating the sad history of the previous ones, states Participacion Ciudadana.
“The situation of the Chamber of Accounts is not casual, it is a reflection of the serious situation of corruption and impunity to which the country has been subject in the last decades. Corruption grew, it took over the State, while organs such as this one, whose mission is to prevent and avoid situations like these from happening, have been penetrated, appropriated and used by the coalitions of officials who have defrauded this country,” says the organization.
Participacion Ciudadana concludes:
“Clearly, changes need to be made in the way they are chosen, but more importantly in the policies that are put in place by members of Congress when it comes to selecting members of this body. The country needs to make sure that the people who are appointed to these positions, in addition to professional and personal capabilities, have as their sole purpose the service to the nation, without partisan or sectorial interests, only attached to ethics and determined to fulfill the noble mission that constitutionally has been granted to an entity that deserves a better destiny.”
Edith Febles interviewed Chamber of Accounts Janel Ramirez for the El Dia morning show, where he gave insights as to what is happening. Somos Pueblo tells more insider details of how corruption has prevailed at the auditing entity. Opinion pieces in El Dia and Diario Libre look into how politics has prevailed, and urge actions to be taken.
Read more in Spanish:
Hoy
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Edith Febles + El Dia
Somos Pueblo
4 May 2023