Weekly Report - 20 August 2009 (WR-09-33)

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC | Corruption. President Leonel Fernández delivered his state-of-the-nation address to congress on 16 August, to mark his second year in government in his second consecutive term, against the backdrop of strike action by medical workers. His hopes of proclaiming the new constitution were dashed when the national assembly failed to complete a second reading in time. Instead Fernández was left to defend the economic policies of his government, which saw 1.4% growth in the first half of 2009, making the Dominican Republic one of just five countries in Latin America to grow over this period.
Fernández was forced to announce various changes to tackle official corruption. The most significant was the removal of Radhamés Segura as head of the state power holding company (CDEEE). Nuria Piera, an investigative journalist, revealed in June that 43 members of Segura's family appeared on the CDEEE payroll. She also found that various advisers, including a brother of Fernández and directors of the ruling Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD), were on the payroll. Protesters have been demonstrating outside the premises of CDEEE recently to demand an end to power shortages.
Fernández said the scandal was “bad but not robbery". He merely reshuffled his pack. Segura was replaced by businessman Celso Marranzini but was appointed as an energy adviser with ministerial rank. When a consular minister at the Dominican embassy in Nicaragua, Radhamés Reyes Vásquez, denounced the existence in July of a mafia at the foreign ministry that falsified diplomatic passports and managed ghost payrolls, the government reacted by firing him.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 260 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

• Subscribe
• Sign up for a one-time, 14-day trial