Organizers of the 12 August March against Impunity, the Green March Movement (Marcha Verde), have said there are now more reasons than ever to protest against administrative corruption. A leading Marcha Verde participant, journalist Juan Bolivar Diaz writes that 19 months after the announcement that the Odebrecht would be investigated following its executives admitting in a New York City court of having paid US$92 million in bribes to expedite contract work in the country, there has been little prosecutorial progress to date. Only seven persons have been accused in the case and these cases are moving at a turtle’s pace through the justice system.
Juan Bolivar Diaz writes: “It is more relevant that 19 months after the confessions of Odebrecht the works contracted in the country for US$5.96 billion have not yet been audited. The testimonies of the executives of the construction company indicate a pattern of overvaluations of 22%, which in the Dominican case would reach US$1.1 billion, 12 times the amount of bribes confessed. An international consortium of journalistic investigations estimated that in the DR overvaluations would have amounted to US$1.2 billion.
Odebrecht has been cited for paying bribes that significantly increased the cost of the works in the country, benefiting government officers and those in their influence, negatively affecting Dominican taxpayers.
Recently, the Chamber of Deputies refused a request for an investigation into payments made to Joao Santana and Monica Moura, sentenced for corruption in Brazil. The latter reportedly was the head the of the regional Odebrecht “bribes office” that Odebrecht executives say was relocated to the Dominican Republic from Brazil. Deputy Faride Raful recently showed General Controller documentation that indicated the state had signed contracts for more than RD$1.3 billion with the Polis Caribe and Cine& Art 2013 companies of the Santana Moury couple that served as political advisors to President Danilo Medina and carried out multiple propaganda campaigns for the 2012 and 2016 elections.
The Marcha Verde Movement wants to increase the crowd numbers from around 150,000 to 200,000 that spontaneously attended a protest march against corruption and impunity along the Winston Churchill avenue on 16 July 2018.
Read more in Spanish:
Acento
30 July 2018
