Diario Libre journalists have followed up on the list of suppliers that benefitted from the Chamber of Deputies orders for RD$176 million in appliances, as recently announced by the legislative body. The list of the companies that won the tender to supply goods for distribution by the legislators to their constituents on the occasion of Mother’s Day, which fell on Sunday 25 March this year, does not contain any companies known for being appliance vendors.
Diario Libre confirmed in actual visits that many of the companies were mainly food suppliers to the state for the Social Plan and several did not have locations that appeared to be functioning as businesses. In several cases, the reported business address did not exist or corresponded to a private home.
Today’s Diario Libre, Tuesday 27 May, asks whether the RD$176 million donations of appliances were charity or robbery. Writing in the editorial, Ines Aizpun recalls the deputies have assigned themselves money in the past to distribute so their constituents can make the seasonal sweet beans during Easter, gifts for mom, Christmas gifts, and backpacks at the beginning of the school year. She observes that taxpayers have never openly delegated responsibility to the legislators for everyone’s solidarity. “The policies for charity with which they purchase their votes impoverish us all. The deputies believe n cynically that when people talk about the slush funds, we are not referring to all,” she comments. She states: “The political class handles too much money arbitrarily and without controls. If the audits of the Chamber of Accounts take six to eight years to be published, what good do they do… and why are they filed away for so long? And, when they are published, nothing happens… what hope do we have?”
She concludes by saying: “The PLD insists on using the poor as an excuse for the personal enrichment of their leaders, while they strangle the little institutionalism that is left so they can stay in power.”
www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2014/05/27/i627971_suplidores-alimentos-vendieron-electrodomsticos-cmara-diputados.html
www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2014/05/27/i627971_suplidores-alimentos-vendieron-electrodomsticos-cmara-diputados.html