According to information released on 21 June 2017, 97% of municipal officials, some 3,901, and 150 deputies and former deputies in the Chamber of Deputies have failed to present their sworn affidavits of assets and liabilities as required by Law 311-14. This law requires all public servants and former personnel to deposit within 30 days from the time they take office or from the time they leave office to deposit the statement. Unfortunately Dominican authorities have yet to apply the punishments laid out in the law for failure to comply.
In their latest report, the Father José Antonio Esquivel Social Laboratory of the John XXIII Center that follows compliance levels of the Law of Sworn Declarations of Assets and its regulations for compliance that is contained in Decree 92-16, notes that “the violation of the law by legislators who refused to submit their respective affidavits of assets seems contradictory and even more so when they themselves were or are members of the legislative power responsible for creating this law and provide the true spirit of Law 311-14”.
The Father José Antonio Esquivel Social Laboratory was developed by the Program of Studies of Dominican Development, a part of the Father Aleman Center of Economic and Social Studies at the Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra. Anthropologist Fernando Ferran, who directs the program, told reporters that it was strange that at a time when everybody is concentrating on the whereabouts of the US$92 million in bribes paid by Odebrecht that legislators and municipal officials are not depositing their sworn affidavits of assets.
Ferran recalled the recent dismissal of Diandino Peña of the Santo Domingo Metro office (Opret) after TV journalist Alicia Ortega revealed his participation as a shareholder in over two dozen companies that are suppliers to the projects carried out by Opret.
On the other hand, in the Senate, with the exception of one former senator, all these legislators have delivered their sworn statements of assets.
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Diario Libre
22 June 2017
