The secretary general of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), Jesús Vásquez accused the Senate of choosing PLD party directors as members of the Chamber of Accounts for the period 2017-2020. He said this means there will not be controls on government spending.
“What we are seeing is that the Chamber of Accounts is now made up of important PLD people who have been chosen to audit cases involving ruling PLD party government officers,” said Vásquez.
He said opposition parties and representatives of civil society should have been invited to participate in the selection of the new members of the Chamber of Accounts. The ruling PLD party is majority in the Congress and thus imposed its majority in the choosing of the members of the government auditing entity.
Likewise, the spokesman for the same opposition party PRM deputies, Alfredo Pacheco confirmed that the five members of the Chamber of Account have strong ties to the government party. “A Chamber of Accounts made up by political party members is an impediment that work will improve,” he said.
The new Chamber of Account members were chosen in an extraordinary session of the senators with the vote of 26 of 29 senators present. The PLD has majorities in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.
On Friday, the Senate chose Hugo Francisco Álvarez to preside the Chamber of Accounts. He replaces Licelot Marte de Barrios, known for her political ties with the PRSC, a former strong political ally of the PLD.
Other members are vice president Pedro Antonio Ortiz, Carlos Noé Tejada Díaz, secretary, and Pablo Domingo del Rosario and Félix Álvarez Rivera.
The backgrounds of the officers are as follows:
Hugo Francisco Álvarez. The 64-year old new president of the Chamber of Accounts is a native of La Vega. He is the son of a former justice of the Supreme Court of Justice, Hugo Alvarez Valencia. He graduated with a degree in law from the Catholic University Madre y Maestra (today PUCMM) in 1977. Álvarez has served as a state prosecutor for the judicial district of La Vega as well as in diplomatic positions at the Dominican Embassy in Bonn, Germany. Judge Alvarez Pérez was also the head of the legal department of the Superintendence of Banks for the north region. The judge has also been a professor at the Catholic Technological University of the Cibao in La Vega as well as at the Fernando Arturo de Meriño Agroforestry University (Uafam) in Jarabacoa. He is brother-in-law of PRSC high director Leonardo Matos Berrido, and the opposition says he has very close ties with the ruling PLD party.
Pedro Antonio Ortiz Hernández. He continues for the Chamber of Account. He was legal advisor at the Dirección General de Precios in 1998 and adjunct prosecutor of the Court of Appeals of Santo Domingo in 1998, during the first government of former President Leonel Fernández. From 2005-2008, during the second government of former President Leonel Fernández, he was appointed executive director of the governmental Council for the Coordination of the Special Zone for Border Development.
Carlos Noé Tejada Díaz. He continues at the Chamber of Accounts. He is an accountant and had served as administrative director of the Chamber of Accounts.
Pablo del Rosario. He continues as a member of the Chamber of Accounts.
He served as deputy technical secretary of the Presidency during the first presidency of Leonel Fernández (from 1998 to 2000), and as deputy technical secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture. He also served from 2004-2008 as finance and administration vice president for BanReservas insurance department.
Félix Álvarez Rivera. He served as prosecutor at the Court of Appeals in Puerto Plata. He is president of a political committee of the ruling PLD in Puerto Plata.
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El Dia
3 February 2017
