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Dominican Republic a Paradise of Corruption in 2005
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By Donald Harrison
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SANTO DOMINGO. - Most of family heads in Dominican Republic areunemployed, according to the results of the survey Enhogar 2005,conducted by National Statistics Office (ONE). For 51.6% of theDominican heads of households the country's main problem isunemployment, followed by crime, with 48.3%, and the lack ofelectricity with 40.4%.
ONE director Pablo Tactuk affirmed that the high cost of livingconstitutes the fourth problem that most concerns Dominicans,with 36.6% of those surveyed responding so.
The year also was marked by political scandals within thegoverning Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) -including corruptionand swindle- standing out among these the scandal of the I.D.cards from the National Investigations Department (DNI) thatconcluded several days ago in Manhattan Criminal Court with aguilty plea by Juan Soler, president of the PLD's local branchand of a political movement which supported Fernandez in thelast elections. He is expected to get a one year jail sentencein January.
Another scandal stemmed from the appointments of 25 "bottles"-people who get salaries and serve no purpose other thancronyism- including vice consuls, nearly 50 assistants, morethan 40 officials in the United Nations and 55 inspectors andassistants of the Presidency, eroding the confidence in thegovernment's announced fight against corruption.
The designation of the Consultative Council could, according tothe people consulted, is seen as the only institutionalaccomplishment, but the organization whose, members arehonorary, could only stage one event, pressed by the Presidentspresence last September. Still expected from that event is thediagnosis in relation to the Dominican Diaspora in New York.Some designations have also locally irritated the governingparty, including the appointment Franklin Guti¨Śrrez as CultureCommissioner in the United States, who is questioned for thehandling of US$100,000 which president Salvador Jorge Blanco(1982-1986) gave to a local commission to open the House ofCulture. Guti¨Śrrez has not convincingly explained thewhereabouts of those funds and many local party leaders see hisswearing in with scorn.
The American ideas of overtaxing, borrowing and starving peopleto death by holding the dollar down with IMF money just isn'tworking....Interest rates have been lowered to earth shakinglevels. An idea that works in the US but not in a country likethe Dominican Republic
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