In an editorial today in Diario Libre, editor Ines Aizpún writes:
“The economic cost of not reaching the bottom on the issue of Odebrecht’s bribes far exceeds the payment of what was stolen. If the Dominican Republic does not punish the bribers… will it be the only country in the region that does not? What is the message we would be sending?
How will this be received by international capitals seeking new markets or places to invest? What will be the reaction of the companies that do not bribe, those that look for places with legal security? How will companies that already are installed here take this?
Who has to pay back the US$92 million and the overpricing of the public works? Those who gave the money or those who received the money? Odebrecht is already reaching agreements in other countries to return stolen money. If the case advances here as it is to be desired (and demanded)… will we ask Odebrecht to pay or those who received it?
“The case of Odebrecht’s bribes will continue to be covered in the press for a long time. If the rope is pulled with courage and honesty, many others will be dragged along. This is the opportunity to dismantle the apparatus of complicity, nepotism and structural prevarication in our political system and government. The PLD Leonel Fernández concretely was who put numbers to the corruption in Dominican Republic: RD$30,000 million a year, he said in the distant 90s when he had not yet been president for the first time. As of then, each deficit and each international loan announcement and each tax hike is a slap to the taxpayer.
Corruption is a problem. Corruption with impunity is a tragedy.”
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
19 January 2017
