Deputy: Dominican Republic Energy chief, bosses are slimy

Santo Domingo.- ‘The kook got loose’ in the Energy and Mines Ministry, where current director Antonio Isa Conde and his predecessor Pelegrin Castillo and his brother Vinicio Castillo, a deputy of the now independent minority FNP party wage a war of insults and allegations of malfeasance.

The popular Dominican expression describes the rants and mutual accusations voiced by Isa and the Castillos since early last week, when the former defended a report on the institution’s finances as audit, “devoid of adjectives or value judgments.”

In a statement on Sunday Isa said the report is based on the transparency that “should prevail in public administration” and revealed that he not only found a “major undeniable deficit,” but also a significant number of projects "which are foam and bubbles, without budget support or profile.”

Vinicio Castillo defended his brother’s honesty, noting that the current Minister and his "slimy and dirty bosses don’t have any “moral quality” to question his brother. "Neither Tony (Antonio) Isa nor his bosses have any capacity to put in their mouth and question Pelegrin. They are slimy and dirty," the lawmaker tweeted.

"If there had been any justice here, Tony Isa should’ve been tried for the biggest looting in history, which ended up as the privatization he directed," the deputy said referring to the capitalization and privatization of the State-owned companies in the late 1980s.