International jail expert Roberto Santana is behind the push for a better jail system in the Dominican Republic. He is hopeful the Las Parras Jail, built for around RD$7 billion, will open this year to end the chaos at the La Victoria Jail.
As reported, there has been an amicable termination of the construction contracts. The Las Parras Jail contracts are part of the Operation Medusa in which former Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez is accused of bribery and general corruption, especially in the dealings with jails.
The Attorney General Office, now under Attorney General Miriam German reports it has accepted to award four construction companies RD$154.8 million to conclude these contracts. The money would be deducted from the funds retained as a guarantee for defects as stipulated in the contracts, Deputy Attorney General Rodolfo Espiñeira told Diario Libre.
The companies with which agreements have been reached are Constructora Pablo Yarul & Asociados, S.R.L., Consorcio Comunicación y Transporte de Prefabricados EEC-Pretensados Structurales Dominicanos, S.R.L., Constructora Woxxen, S.R.L. and the Remix-Rotilla Consortium.
Diario Libre explains that these companies were the winners of four of the five contracts into which the construction of Las Parras was subdivided, the largest of the works carried out during the Humanization Plan of the Penitentiary System under former AG Rodríguez’s management since 2018.
Although the works were inaugurated in 2020, the investigations that gave rise to the Medusa case determined that the prison was left unfinished, with design problems. To this, investigators add the alleged payment of bribes that the contractors incurred to receive the works from the Attorney General Office (PGR).
Media reports have also indicated that Lisandro Macarrulla Martinez of the fifth contractor company, MAC Construcciones, has also reached an agreement with the PGR.
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Diario Libre
El Nuevo Diario
DR1 News
10 April 2024