Transparency and Justice calls Dominican Social Security “ruthless”

SANTO DOMINGO. – The Justice and Transparency Foundation (FJT) on Friday railed the Social Security System as a “ruthless fund raising machinery at the service of the factual powers, becoming a sort of white elephant characterized by injustice, exclusion, lack of information and little transparency in its actions.”

FJT president Trajano Potentini said the Dominican Social Security, enacted by Law 87-01, has lost its course and direction, “and what’s most serious is that it has wavered from the objectives which gave it its birthright, currently becoming one of major hurdles for the fundamental right to health.”

He called on the authorities to take note and respond to he described as serious denunciation by the Construction Workers Pension Fund (Fopetcons), which revealed that the Brazilian company Odebrecht has diverted and stopped paying the more than RD$1.0 billion and jeopardizing the construction sector workers, which reveals a lack of oversight, supervision and complicity.

The FJT president added that Social Security Law 87-01 requires an indispensable and integral amendment, to essentially redirect the Pension Fund Superintendence and the Health and Labor Risks (Sisalril), agencies which in its view are at the service of economic sectors and not the people.