The Ministry of Housing, Habitat and Construction (Mived) announces it has opened an emergency procurement process to contract the completion of the construction of the Las Parras Correction and Rehabilitation Center (Nueva Victoria) for an estimated RD$2,016.2 million. The jail was built during the last term of former President Danilo Medina with Odebrecht corruption funds to decongest the La Victoria Jail in northern Santo Domingo. Then Attorney General Jean Alain Rodriguez disregarded advice from the country’s leading jail expert and built an enormous jail city in Santo Domingo province.
The procedure to complete the jail is justified by the “urgent need” to put the facility into operation to improve the living conditions of the country’s prison population, characterized by overcrowding and insecurity, Diario Libre reports, citing official documents.
Mived says it has the approval of no objection to the procurement process from the Committee for Monitoring the Penitentiary Reform Plan created in April 2024 by decree of President Luis Abinader. The committee was created to assist in the completion of the legal and administrative procedures to overcome the obstacles to the completion of the jail. Jail contractors have been investigated for being part of a corruption scheme under the Medusa Operation and main accused former Attorney General Jean Alain Rodriguez.
Diario Libre reports that the procurement procedure, according to the justification report that accompanies it, is substantiated in two letters that the Public Ministry sent to Mived requesting the acceleration of the completion of Las Parras. One of them was sent by Attorney General Miriam Germán Brito, who on 9 May 2024 asked for the acceleration of the construction and completion of the prisons under construction.
The other, dated 10 May, is from Roberto Hernández Basilio, head of the Prisons and Corrections Agency (DGSPO), who explained the degree of overcrowding, 63% overpopulation, that the La Victoria prison had before the fire that affected it on 18 March, in which at least 13 people died. He said 9,900 inmates need to be relocated.
“The preventive prisons of Greater Santo Domingo are overcrowded with people deprived of their liberty with coercive measures without having spaces to house them,” the letter continues in arguing for the urgent need to move on the completion of the jail. Preventive prisons are for inmates that have not yet been sentenced.
“Based on the report issued by the aforementioned commission and on what was indicated by the director general of Prisons and Corrections, it is urgent to finish the Las Parras Correction and Rehabilitation Center,” says a report by three experts appointed to verify the existence or not of a state of need.
Once this need was verified, the experts recommended carrying out the emergency exception procedure provided for in Law 340-06 and Decree 416-23 on Public Procurement of Goods, Services and Works.
This procedure is reserved for the acquisition of “goods, services or works to meet needs caused by unforeseen, unexpected, unpredictable, immediate, concrete and proven fortuitous events, which impact the public interest and are within the scope of action of a public institution”.
Those interested in participating in the procurement process for the completion of Las Parras have until 15 July to submit their economic and technical offers to Mived, according to a publication made by that entity on 2 July 2024. The opening of the bids will be on the same day at 3pm. The award of the completion contract is scheduled for Monday, 12 August 2024.
The Attorney General Office under Attorney General Miriam German Brito delayed the completion of the jail as the investigation and deals with the contractors was being heard.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
3 July 2024