Powerful NGO “fails” nearly half of government agencies on transparency

Santo Domingo. -The sixth monitoring report conducted by a powerful NGO on the Free Access to Public Information Law 200-04 “failed” 48% of the government agencies, with scores below 50 points.

For its report, the civic group Citizen Participation selected 52 agencies, based on their high funding from the government budget, led by the Justice Ministry, the Pensions Superintendence, and the Public Procurement Agency.

Citizen Participation executive Carlos Pimentel cited the State Works Supervisor Office, the National Assets Office and the Higher Education Ministry, as the entities which scored worst, with 40, 41 and 42.

He called deplorable the fact that despite the Law has been in effect for eight years, many agencies still fail to comply, and where citizens complaints ? are met with silence. "What’s even more serious is that to date these agencies have yet to open a free access to information office."

He added that the discretion level in relation to statistics of those agencies is high, and only 54% of those studied confirmed the publication of its statistics.

Funding

The NGO on Wednesday admitted funding from abroad, but denied that the resources received aren’t audited.

PC, which gets partial funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has been accused by the government of being partial to the opposition PRD party.