Senator Tonty Rutinel Dominguez (PRD-Province of Santo Domingo) has resigned his post as president of the Commission for Reform and Modernization of Congress and the Chamber of Accounts. He alerted that those who put the kibosh on the reform process are now trying to change the Senate?s board of directors to give them enough leverage to blackmail the next government and negotiate impunity for themselves. Rutinel addressed himself to the president of the PRD, Vicente Sanchez Baret, a high-ranked leader of the PPH faction that supports President Hipolito Mejia, and to the Senate president Jesus Vasquez Martinez. Vasquez Martinez had complained on Wednesday that the PPH was behind the move in Congress to remove him from the helm of the Senate to install Andres Bautista in his place. Bautista would ostensibly be a puppet to the interests of the PPH politicians who were voted out of government by the 16 May presidential election. Batista was president of the Senate prior to Vasquez?s election.
Rutinel made charges of wide-scale corruption in the management of an Interamerican Development Bank program to strengthen the governmental accounts auditing office, the Camara de Cuentas. Despite Rutinel presenting evidence to corroborate the existence of the corruption, President Mejia supported the Senate PPH-PRD majority vote that reinstated the accounts judges in their posts. The accounts department is called on to rule on the use of funds in government.