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To spend - or not to spend
posted on: Jul 8 2011 10:34 by The Reporter. Viewed 560 times.
In a country that desperately needs money to pay for basics such as education, health, potable water and consistent electricity, the recent survey from the World Economic Forum suggests that these basics may never happen.
The Dominican Government under President Leonel Fernandez administration has been ranked second of 139 countries for wastefulness of government spending by the World Economic Forum in its 2010-2011 Global Competitiveness Report.
Much of this is attributed to corruption among Goverment officials in all areas.
Corruption is hardly ‘new’ news as in many speeches, even the President himself acknowledges that it exists among the corridors of power, but it is always downplayed as being minor, under control and on the way out. Recent reports however paint a different picture.
According to website Acento.com.do, goverment official Hotoniel Bonilla said that 104 billion pesos had been stolen through corruption between 2000 and 2010. In the same report, the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) estimated that the current (PLD) goverment had stolen around RD$ 400 billion in its ten year rule.
Of course, PLD party members are quick to suggest that in the years before 2000, the PRD while in power were doing exactly the same thing.
Another way of ‘wasting’ public money, is by dishing it out to private companies for work on public contracts.
2011 was declared by the President as the “Year of Transparency and Institutional Strengthening”, but many are questioning whether anything is really changing.
President Fernandez was this month forced by public opinion to revoke a US$389 million roadway contract, which was granted to a Dominican-Brazilian consortium without tender. The Presidency justified his original decision and granting of the contract saying that Law 340-06 establishes exceptional cases where the government can declare works to be urgent, overriding other dispositions. His revocation of the contract was made to “satisfy certain requests made by public opinion.”
The contract was awarded to the Consorcio Carretera Internacional represented by engineer Lorenzo Antonio Cruz Suriel for Andres & Camila Materiales y Construcciones and the Brazilian firm Constructora Andrade Gutierrez represented by engineer Rodrigo Vargas and Eduardo Antonio da Silva Roque.
The director of the OISOE was ordered to issue an advance of RD$77 million to start the works.
As reported by the El Nacional newspaper, this contract award without a tender was in violation of Procurement Law 340-06. El Nacional went on to to say that Article 65 of Law 1486 on the representation of the state establishes that in the case of public contracting, officials who intervene in the purchase of goods and services without a tender and in violation of the law could be subject to three years in prison and a fine equivalent to the contracted value of goods and services.
But that is unlikely to happen.
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