2006 – Page 15

PLD deputy Isabel Bonilla is expressing her frustrations with government efforts in the Rio San Juan area, as reported in Hoy. She feels she has failed her constituents because President Fernandez has not been able to meet campaign promises of improving the sewage system, paving the streets and improving the low-voltage public electricity service in …

Read more…

The Central Electoral Board has announced that it will control the political parties’ conventions, primaries and assemblies, as reported in Diario Libre. The newspaper editorial was prompt to criticize the decision as a major error by the organization in charge of organizing presidential, congressional and municipal elections in the DR. Diario Libre comments that it …

Read more…

Listin Diario publishes the findings of a recent Hamilton Beattie & Staff survey on the leading political parties’ presidential pre-candidates. Pollsters interviewed 1,200 citizens nationwide from 2-6 December. The surprise finding was that former Santo Domingo senator Jose Tomas Perez is the PLD pre-candidate with the highest rating. Voters were asked who should be candidate …

Read more…

Businessman Luis Arthur comments on the ruling PLD party’s four leading presidential pre-candidates in his column in today’s El Caribe. He explains that they are Leonel Fernandez, who he describes as the “President who talks pretty”, and who until recently was the most accepted within the party and beyond, but who after the fiscal reform …

Read more…

Presidency Technical Secretary Temistocles Montas has explained that a possible typing error in the planned fiscal reform led many to believe that freight vehicles will be taxed under the proposed fiscal reform. Montas said that the error would be corrected, and that freight vehicles will not be subject to a 5% levy. The Secretary said …

Read more…

Members of the ruling PLD and opposition PRSC parties are joining forces against article 38 of the fiscal reform presented by the Executive Branch, expressing their concern that removal of exemptions for free trade zones (FTZ) located in the special border development regions would come as a setback for development in these areas. Article 38 …

Read more…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is postponing the fifth and sixth revisions of the Dominican Republic’s Stand-by agreement until 24 January 2007. The agreement was supposed to be reviewed on 22 December. This is the third postponement of the reading. The IMF representative in the DR, Erik Offerdal says that the negotiations that correspond to …

Read more…

The first part of a US$150 million loan was finally given to the Dominican Republic after the country paid off a US$45 million outstanding debt to the energy distributors. The loan, which was approved in 2005, will be directed towards the energy sector. The World Bank stipulated that the DR had to pay off the …

Read more…

Customs (DGA) head Miguel Cocco is voicing his concern about inefficiency on the part of the courts in convicting criminals who have been apprehended by the Customs department. Cocco says that the DGA does its job in catching the criminals but that the courts don’t prosecute them. Cocco said that there still haven’t been any …

Read more…

Executive Director of the Presidential Council on AIDS (COPRESIDA) Humberto Salazar says that in the last nine months the government, through COPRESIDA, has invested more than RD$20 million in fighting the disease in the sugar cane workers settlements, known as bateyes, where mostly Haitian migrants live. Salazar made his comments in response to the concerns …

Read more…