Opcion Democratica deputy Jose Horacio Rodriguez complained that the Dominican Republic needs to borrow US$60 million to work towards transparency in government. Rodriguez made the remark after the Chamber of Deputies passed a US$60 million Interamerican Development Bank loan to improve transparency in government.
The Support for Transparency and Integrity in the Dominican Republic loan was approved by the IDB in 2022 and now passed in Congress for enactment.
The IDB explains that the operation will promote actions to consolidate transparency and traceability in resource management, strengthen the internal control function, and promote access to information, citizen participation, and integrity in public administration and the private sector.
The program is intended to support transparency measures in public finances based on greater interoperability between the budget, the public investment system, contracting processes, and the internal control ecosystem. Likewise, it will modernize the electronic contracting system, monitoring, follow-up, and evaluation of public investment by designing and implementing a system of final beneficiaries for legal persons and structures in the country.
The Dominican Republic will finance the modernization of the management model and organizational structure of the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, which will allow a digital transformation of the “ex ante” control model, as well as a reorganization of the agency’s duties, positions, and necessary staffing and of internal control units.
Likewise, the program will implement an interest conflict management system and develop tools that facilitate citizen participation, complaints management, and protecting whistleblowers of acts of corruption. It will also strengthen the Single Transparency Portal, which will centralize open data and open government portals, and the public information access system with accessibility for people with disabilities, among other activities led by the Office of Government Ethics and Integrity.
Former Vice President Milagros Ortiz Bosch, who is the director of the Office of Government Ethics and Integrity, recently defended that the ruling Modern Revolutionary Party clear for running for office candidates that have been questioned for corruption and lack of transparency when in office. Ortiz Bosch argues these have not been tried or condemned.
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24 October 2023