2005 – Page 190

US District Judge Kimba Wood will hear the drug smuggling case against former army captain Quirino Paulino Castillo today. Quirino Paulino Castillo’s lawyer Lawrence Ruggieri has said he will be looking at the technicalities in the prosecution’s case. Commenting on key evidence in taped conversations, he said, as reported in El Caribe, “I want to …

Read more…

According to a report presented to the Senate by the Chamber of Accounts, the governmental accounting office in charge of reviewing governmental use of funds, the state used resources in a discriminatory, disorganized way, incurring policy and budgetary violations and demonstrating scantly trustworthy planning. The report does not differentiate between the first seven and a …

Read more…

As part of efforts to promote the use of less costly, alternative fuel sources, the Fundacion Global Democracia y Desarrollo, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the Ministry of Environment and the Consorcio Tecno-Deah are again hosting pilot Max Shauck, who is the director of Baylor University for Air Science, Waco, Texas. He flew to …

Read more…

President Leonel Fernandez himself announced the country completed yesterday a successful sovereign debt exchange. The country needed an 85% participation rate and obtained 93%. On Wednesday, the DR launched its offer to swap US$1.1 billion in sovereign bonds issued in 2001 (US$500 million in 9.5% bonds due 2006 extended to 2011) and 2003 (US$600 million …

Read more…

El Caribe newspaper in its editorial today commends the success of the restructuring of the payment of the sovereign bonds and says this news strengthens confidence and helps pave the way for leaving behind us the economic crisis. He says now the authorities need to concentrate on the priorities the IMF visiting mission has indicated: …

Read more…

The president of the Senate, Andres Bautista Garcia (PRD), and legislators Victor Bisono (PRSC) and Ramon Agramonte (PRD) told the press that they do not agree with the request of the IMF visiting mission regarding the need to legislate on new taxes. In their opinion, the people cannot take more taxes. They feel tax reform …

Read more…

Diario Libre’s editorial writer today asks if DR residents can bear more taxes and whether the Dominican people are getting back in services what they are paying for in taxes. “A reasonable answer is ‘no’, because a large percentage of those taxes are going to pay a public debt generated by loans that evaporated without …

Read more…

The president of the Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic (AIRD), Yandra Portela Vila proposed that the government take advantage of the interest in the fiscal reform to create conditions so that the private sector be the one to generate jobs, as reported in Diario Libre. She called for a serious revision of the …

Read more…

The Center for Export and Investment in the Dominican Republic (CEI-RD) confirmed that the value of exports of the free zone sector declined 3.1% in the first quarter of the year. This contradicts the first quarter report of the Central Bank that says that this sector grew 3.5%. The CEI-RD report says that the value …

Read more…

Business sector spokesmen told Hoy newspaper that the commercial bank interest rate on loans should not be more than 15%. Unnamed persons said that banks have reduced the interest rates they pay on certificates of deposit from 20 to 8 and 10%, but there has not been a corresponding decline in rates on lending. They …

Read more…