2010 – Page 200

Public Works Minister Victor Diaz Rua told reporters at Las Americas International Airport that the ministry’s budget for fixing up roads and highways had been used up. The engineer said that the National Asphalt Plan had been carried out through public tenders with private construction companies, but the money has run out. He said additional …

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Civic group Citizen Participation (PC in Spanish) has issued its fourth and last bulletin on its observation process of the 16 May congressional and municipal elections. According to the bulletin, the elections were marked by an increase in political patronage, turncoats who switched parties, and the abuse of state resources. PC says that this represents …

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The Central Electoral Board (JCE) Disputes Chamber reserved its decisions on 16 appeals and one request for protection related to the results of the recent congressional and municipal elections in a public hearing held yesterday. Disputes Chamber head Mariano Rodriguez set next Tuesday as the deadline for the tribunal to release its decisions on the …

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In an analysis in this week’s Clave, economist Miguel Ceara-Hatton concludes that the number of people on government welfare programs and employed by the government add up to 2,022,325. He concludes that this means that 33.1% of the total registered voters in the 16 May election, 6,116,397, are directly receiving government funds. “To have 33.1% …

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The National Drug Control Department (DNCD) has confirmed that there have been irregularities involving a plane that originated in the DR and abandoned in Honduras. Nevertheless, the DNCD says the drugs that the airplane is suspected of having transported were not loaded here. DNCD reported that one of the “passengers” on the Beechcraft airplane, N308RH, …

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Dominican Civil Aviation Institute (IDAC) director Jose Tomas Perez recently announced that the country would soon be using modern software designed to detect irregularities involving pilots and planes. The Civil Aviation Security System (CASS) was designed and is administered by the Central American Corporation for Air Navigation Services (Cocesna). “The idea is that the problem …

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Writing in today’s Hoy newspaper, Claudio Acosta speculates on the new offensive by Puerto Rican drug baron Jose David Figueroa Agosto’s defense lawyers. Acosta wonders why these lawyers are really coming and what could be the true motives of the visit, announced as to come to “clean the name and the honor” of the fugitive. …

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National District prosecutor Alejandro Moscoso Segarra has described the fact that fugitive Puerto Rican Jose David Figueroa Agosto lawyers are coming to the DR to defend his case without their client appearing before justice as “absurd”, as reported in Hoy. Moscoso said that the first thing Puerto Rican lawyers Ramon Negron, Dominic Rodriguez, Ruben Cerezo …

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National Human Rights Commission president Manuel Maria Mercedes has told Clave newspaper that the recent murders of people the authorities have said have ties to Puerto Rican drug baron Jose David Figueroa Agosto could involve members of government security bodies. “We are almost convinced that these executions correspond to a sector within the security organizations …

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On the eve of this year’s hurricane season serious weaknesses are being brought to the forefront. These include a lack of meteorological radars in key locations around the country and the government’s failure to implement risk mitigation projects. A seminar on disaster prevention held yesterday revealed that the lack of equipment in the country and …

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