The deputies for the National District for the PRM, Faride Raful, Francisco Javier Paulino, Agustin Burgos and Robinson Diaz requested on Thursday, 12 July 2018, that the Congress investigate the legality of the contracts totaling RD$1.4 billion signed by the Administrative Ministry of the Presidency with companies tied to President Danilo Medina’s campaign advisor, Joao Santana and his wife Monica Moura. The PRM deputies are requesting the appointment of a special commission to review evidence that the payments to the Brazilians, who are in jail in Brazil for their ties to Odebrecht corruption, were made from that ministry.
Faride Raful offered the explanation for the appeal during the Thursday session of the Chamber of Deputies. She says the evidence has been ignored by the Attorney General Office. She said the details of the transactions were not included in the annual accounts rendering made by the Administrative Ministry of the Presidency.
“What concerns us the most is knowing at what point we can separate the figure of the President from that of the candidate,” she said. She wants a congressional commission to study the evidence and the legality of the contracts with Joao Santana and his wife.
She asks for a commission to investigate payments made by the Administrative Ministry of the Presidency and the Presidency Communications Agency (Dicom) from 2012-2016 to companies affiliated to Santana and his wife. Raful says that despite Santana, who served as leading electoral campaign strategist for President Medina, having left the country in February 2016, to answer to charges for corruption by the Brazilian judiciary, the Santana affiliated companies continued to receive payments from the Dominican government. Santana would be sentenced to jail in Brazil.
Raful said companies related to Santana and his wife (PolisCaribe and Cine&Art 2013) were contracted from the first day of the Medina administration on 16 August 2012 through January 2017, 11 months after the promoters were arrested in Brazil after traveling there to answer to charges of corruption and asset laundering.
The PRM legislators say that based on government documentation, several articles of the Constitution of the Republic may have been violated in the contracts, article 14 of the Public Procurement Law 340-06 and the Article 114 of the Criminal Code. Also articles 47,55 and 174 of the Electoral Law, articles 3, 7, 18 and 24 of the Law on Money Laundering, article 54 of the Organic Budget Law and article 3 of Law 448-06 covering bribes.
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16 July 2018
