2006News

Political businesspeople?

Finance Minister Vicente Bengoa was on the offensive over the weekend after being quoted in Friday’s newspapers questioning where Business Council (Conep) president Elena Viyella Paliza got her information that the government payroll had increased by 30,000 jobs over the last six months. Bengoa reacted to Viyella’s comments on overspending during the American Chamber of …
2006News

Businesspeople politicians?

Inez Aizpun, an editor at Diario Libre, published a column in Saturday’s edition of the paper commenting on the Finance Minister’s criticism of Elena Viyella’s statements on government overspending and other irregularities as an indication that business people wanted to be politicians. “The problem is not that business people speak up as politicians, but rather …
2006News

Verdicts for sale

Supreme Court judge Hugo Alvarez has revealed that 16 judges in Higuey have been dismissed for handing out sentences that favored drug dealers, and that the same thing has happened in Santiago in the case of eight or ten magistrates. According to the judge, there are still plenty of “benign” magistrates who sell their verdicts. …
2006News

Montecristi refinery

Foreign Relations Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso announced that the government has begun preliminary feasibility studies for the installation of a petroleum refinery in northwestern Montecristi for the export of crude oil to the United States. He also explained that the heir to the Saudi throne would be visiting the country during the month of November …