Congress is exercising its role and is looking how to change the decades-long situation that has impacted and continues to impact the Audit Chamber or Chamber of Accounts (Camara de Cuentas), the government entity in charge of auditing government departments.
The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are considering changing the legislation that organizes the Audit Chamber to give more power to the president of the entity to make changes within.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, 9 May 2023, in the Chamber of Deputies, deputies voted to merge four bills that call for an investigation. Likewise, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfredo Pacheco exercised his authority and ordered the merge of the four bills that call for an insider review of the Chamber of Accounts (CCRD), overridden by internal conflicts.
The current president of the Chamber of Accounts Janel Ramirez says he has been strangled and impeded to do his job. Siding with him is member Mario Arturo Fernandez Burgos. They say the key government entity is at a standstill because of the opposition to continuing the work to finish the audits.
Ramirez and Fernandez have set distance from three other members of the organization – Elsa María Catano Ramirez, Tomasina Tolentino de Mckenzie, Elsa Peña Peña.
The president of the Chamber of Accounts has complained that efforts to enter new professionals to the Chamber of Accounts, and efforts to not validate altered audits produced when Hugo Alvarez presided the Chamber of Accounts that would benefit several former government officers now standing for trial for corruption. Ramirez has complained the internal conflicts have kept production of audits at a minimum. He said the objective is to produce 100 audits, and seven were carried out.
Pacheco ordered on Tuesday, 9 May 2023 that the four draft resolutions that seek to initiate an investigation against the Chamber of Accounts for the internal conflicts be merged to shorten the procedures. The merged piece would be presented to the floor of the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday, 10 May 2023.
The single draft would request the designation of a special committee to investigate the scandals surrounding the Chamber of Accounts of the Dominican Republic.
The proponents calling for investigating the Chamber of Accounts are Jose Horacio Rodriguez (Opción Democrática), Juan Dionicio Rodriguez Restituyo (Partido Frente Amplio), Alfredo Pacheco and Julito Fulcar (Partido Revolucionario Moderno – PRM) and Gustavo Sanchez (Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana – PLD).
Rodriguez Restituyo said that while the bills seek the same objective of investigating the Chamber of Accounts, there are significant nuances. He said one requests appointing a special committee for the investigation, another seeks to question the conflictive members of the Chamber of Accounts, while another focuses on the entire body, and calls for an investigation to determine whether it is necessary to hold an impeachment trial of the members of the Chamber of Accounts, elected for the period 2021-2025.
Ruling party senator Faride Raful complained that there are 11 key audits that the plenary of the Chamber of Accounts has not met to hear and thus move for these to be used by the Attorney General Office for prosecuting corruption. Among these is the audit to the Ministry of Education (2016-2018), Santiago city government (2016-2019), Customs Agency (2016-2019), Infotep (2016-2020), Social Cabinet (2020), Ministry of Hacienda (2019-2020), Ministry of Industry and Commerce (2015-2019), Ministry of Foreign Relations (2015-2016).
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Diario Libre
N Digital
El Dia
El Nuevo Diario
10 May 2023