Industries slam Dominican Republic president on lack of transparency

Santo Domingo.- The Government’s touted transparency on Tuesday met with the rebuke of the country’s Industries Association, whose president said it exists only “in the mind of the president, no where else.”

Victor Castro said the Government’s lack of transparency is evidenced by the as many as 30,000 gallons of diesel offered to the industrialists several pesos cheaper than its market price. “That’s from diesel which is subsidized by the government.”

He also accused the government of providing the Brazilian contractor Odebrecht with 15 million gallons of subsidized diesel, despite that it doesn’t use that amount. “It’s not true that they consume that.”

Castro said despite spending 20 million dollars on subsidized fuel per month, the country gets very little back. “20 million, in exchange for what?”

“These things had better be transparent, we need to get something for subsidizing this operations, we don’t agree with capricious subsidies.”

Also lacking transparency, Castro said, is the deal involving the power company Congentrix, and compared it to yet another scandal in the early 1990s, called Hydro-Quebec-Sofati, where the Government paid more than US$20 million to what was then revealed was a shell company.

Interviewed on Telesistema by Huchi Lora, Castro said “there’s no transparency, we hear only of measures but we don’t see any results.”

“The CDEEE (State-owned Electric Utility) should place all these figures and information on its Website. But it doesn’t,” the industrial leader said.

He said the lack of transparency is also seen in the Youth Ministry, where despite the dismissal of 26 deputy ministers, “most of them are still paid a check as advisers and other things. So where is the touted transparency? In the mind of the president, no where else.”