Participacion Ciudadana, a leading civic society group, said the incoming government will submit to a trial by fire (?prueba de fuego?) when dealing with the bank collapse case. Alfonso Abreu Collado of PC told El Caribe it will put the PLD?s anti-corruption talk to the test. He criticized the present monetary and financial authorities? handling of the scandal-fraught bank frauds. Participacion Ciudadana opened a debate called ?Impact of Bank Frauds on Dominican Society.? Representatives for the monetary authorites and the Banco Nacional de Credito (one of the cases being analyzed), as well as those who have not been able to recover their deposits, participated in the first session. Lawyer Candido Simon Polanco said the taxpaying public has been saddled with the burden of the banking crisis, even though it played no part in the bank scams.
To resolve the crisis, despite features in the Monetary Law 183-02 that limited governmental liability to RD$500,000, the authorities chose to guarantee all deposits, regardless of the fact that 80 accounts held 75% of all monies deposited, of which the bank treasurer was one.
The cases open to discussion are those of Baninter (RD$55 billion), Bancredito (RD$20 billion) and Banco Mercantil (RD$6 million).
The judicial, economic and social consequences of the bank frauds were also debated. Speaking among others were Gustavo Biaggi Pumarol, one of the depositors at Bancredito; Eduardo Jorge Prats, former judicial consultant to the Central Bank and a lawyer of one of the former directors of Bancredito; and Apolinar Veloz, the operations manager of the Central Bank.