Former deputy Hugo Tolentino Dipp spoke up yesterday calling for all former presidents and incumbent President Danilo Medina also be included in the Odebrecht bribes scandal investigation.
In a televised interview on Channel, he called the relationship between the Dominican government and Odebrecht “a scheme that certainly involved more than 14 people in and out of the government.”
He questioned how President Danilo Medina and President Leonel Fernandez could not have also been embroiled in the investigation by the Attorney General Office (PGR) that identified 14 officials, former officials, legislators and suppliers who have been accused of accepting bribes. “I’m thinking: Is it possible that the both of the PLD Presidents of the Republic stay cleared of this scandal?”
“All presidents (from 2001-2016) should be investigated for the benefit of the country, the Dominican nation, the Dominican citizens who deserve transparency, because it is our country’s reputation that they are playing with and with our money, with the future of our children and their grandchildren,” said Tolentino Dipp when interviewed on Enfoque Matinal on Channel 37.
Tolentino said that Angel Rondón is not the key person in the bribery scandal.
The scandal in which Odebrecht officials admitted in a New York court to have bribe Dominican officials spans the terms of three Dominican Presidents, from 2001 to 2014. The Dominican presidents during those years were: Hipólito Mejía (2000-2004), Leonel Fernández (2004-2008, 2008-2012), and Danilo Medina (2012-2016).
Tolentino Dipp is a well-known historian, politician, lawyer and former Minister of Foreign Relations. Tolentino was the minister of Foreign Relations during the Hipólito Mejía administration (2000-2004), but resigned in protest when Mejía did not heed his recommendation to not send Dominican troops to the Iraq war. Likewise, Tolentino is known as one of the few deputies that did not vote in favor of Odebrecht contract work or financing in Congress when representing the PLD in the Chamber of Deputies.
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El Caribe
2 June 2017
