More than 1,000 vehicles of the National Police with less than 5 years of use are junk or are in salvage, denounced Servio Tulio Castaños Guzmán, coordinator of the Working Group for the Transformation and Professionalization of the National Police. As reported in N Digital, Castaños Guzmán said that a mafia operated within the Police resulting in the destruction of several work vehicles. He said the Police has only authorized one workshop to repair its entire vehicle fleet.
He explained that if a vehicle suffered damages in Pedernales, five hours drive away, it had to be brought to Santo Domingo. He explained that vehicles from 2016, 2017 or 2019 are junk today.
Castaños Guzmán revealed that less than 200 detachments, out of the more than 700 in the 32 provinces of the country, have the capacity to receive complaints from the citizens. Another major deficiency found in the law enforcement institution is that only 190 police stations of the around 700 nationwide have access to the Internet
When interviewed on the TV program Hoy Mismo, Guzmán Castaños said that President Luis Abinader has accepted all the recommendations and suggestions, as well as the diagnosis, made by the working group for the professionalization and transformation of the National Police.
Last week, President Luis Abinader swore in Spaniard police and drug trafficking expert, Jose Vila del Castillo as executive commissioner for the transformation and professionalization of the National Police, and Servio Tulio Castaños as a member of the Executive Committee created to carry out the changes in the law enforcement institution. Both were appointed by presidential decree.
The Commission is chaired by Abinader. The members are the ministers of Interior and Police (as vice-president) and of the Presidency, new Commissioner Del Castillo, and lawyer Servio Tulio Castaños.
This committee will coordinate the public instances and administrative departments to articulate the necessary changes in the institution and “will present quarterly reports, or when required” on the evolution of the process, said the President.
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N Digital
18 January 2022