After a government supplier produced evidence of irregularities in a recent tender for the purchase of 40,000 food kits at the National Institute for Early Childhood Care (Inaipi), the Medina administration responded firing the staff. The director of the Inaipi, Berlinesa Franco resigned.
Danilo Medina has personal ties to France. He was best man at the wedding of Franco to the late Juan de los Santos. He is also the godfather of one of her children.
Flavio Dario Espinal, legal advisor to President Danilo Medina, upon making the announcement to the nation from the Presidential Palace, said those that had been fired at Inaipi will be sent to justice. Espinal said that the resigning director of Inaipi said that the contracting procedures were violated in the rush to get aid to the needed.
Coinciding with the circulation of the presidential decree in which the Inaipi officers were fired, Yokasta Guzmán, the director of the Procurement Agency, appeared on Esta Noche con Mariasela variety show but did not have details to share to substantiate any wrongdoings in the procedures. She said the case would be investigated. She defended the procurement procedures under the Medina administration. During the Wednesday, 8 April TV show, the food packaging businessman, Pablo Cabrera produced new evidence of the irregularities in the RD$100 million bid for food kits.
President Danilo Medina appointed Kenia Lora Abreu to head Inaipi. At the time, Lora was the director of the National Council Children and Teenagers (Conani). Lora has been in the Medina administration since its start. Early on she was named secretary of President Danilo Medina. She later was sent to serve abroad in a diplomatic position. Lora was also appointed to sit on the board of the governmental Banco de Reservas. She is a graduate in social communications.
Berlinesa Franco is the daughter of Franklin Franco and half sister of Marisol Franco, the spouse of Cesar Emilio Peralta (Cesar el Abusador), a Dominican drug kingpin with a lengthy criminal record for his involvement in narcotics trafficking and violence, who is now under arrest in Colombia, awaiting extradition to the United States.
A Google search reveals that Berlinesa and Marisol’s father, today 70-year old Franklin Franco, is regarded as one of the country’s first notable drug trafficker. He reportedly relocated to the Dominican Republic after escaping from jail in Sandstone, Minnesota in the United States. He was charged locally for drug trafficking cases but President Joaquin Balaguer never authorized the requested extradition to the United States. Franco remained in jail for around nine years on the local charges of drug trafficking.
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Diario Libre
Diario Libre
9 April 2020