The Department for the Prevention of Corruption (DEPRECO) reported yesterday that they were going to target the 110 deputies who have yet to file their sworn declarations of worth, in spite of being in office for more than two years. Octavio Lister Henriquez, the head of DEPRECO, told El Caribe reporters that so far only 40 of the deputies have fulfilled the legal requirements. Lister Henriquez said he would ask Alfredo Pacheco, the Chamber of Deputies president, to hold the wages of the tardy deputies. Over 600 members of the current administration have placed their sworn statements on file, but Lister says that more than 500 officials still have to get their paperwork in order. He also pointed out that a mere 74 members of the Mejia administration had fulfilled the requirements as set out in Law 82-79. The DEPRECO chief was kind to Mejia when he termed a quote made by the former President to a foreign journalist a “slip of the tongue.” Mejia had told the journalist that his net worth was “three million dollars.” In 2000, however, when Mejia took the executive office, he declared a net worth of RD$19.076 million and when he left office he stated his worth at RD$46.50 million. Lister complained that the Law 82-79 is not a simple legal formality, but rather “an instrument that helps determine a person’s patrimony before and after taking office. Unfortunately, this law has not been enforced with the necessary vigor because there are more who do not fulfill the requirements than there are who do.”