President Hipolito Mejia has chosen to address the nation tonight, 12 August, at 8pm, following a cabinet meeting. The speech will be televised on Channel 4, the state television station.
On Monday, 16 August, President Mejia also announced that he would place the banner of President on his successor Leonel Fernandez and remain until Fernandez is sworn in by the president of the Senate. He said he would not, however, stay to hear his successor’s inaugural speech.
Mejia said this change in the mandate protocol followed since 1966 had been agreed upon with Felix Jimenez, coordinator of the ceremony. Mejia explained that he would leave Congress because to “place oneself there in the future and the past and be there listening to all the kinds of things that have been said here, I do not think is convenient.” He explained this protocol is also used in Venezuela.
Mejia said upon leaving office he would return to the former business he had before becoming President, but would first take a vacation. He discarded the notion of residing abroad. “I get my rest here. I rest surrounded by farming, in my house,” he said.
Hoy newspaper’s Coctelera commentary speculates that one of the reasons that Mejia may have chosen not to be present is that he could be booed upon arriving to the seat of Congress.
Hoy reports that a battalion of the presidential guard would pay tribute to Mejia before he goes to Congress for the transfer of power. The newspaper highlights that the only other statesman to do the same was President Salvador Jorge Blanco (1982-1986), who spent the evening of 15 August at the Presidential Palace.
Sociologist Ramon Tejada Holguin wonders in his contribution to El Caribe newspaper today what President Hipolito Mejia was referring to when he said he had fulfilled 99% of his 2000 presidential campaign promises. Tejada Holguin says he has consulted several statistical experts to try to make sense of the statement. He requested values that would have to be attributed to the electricity crisis, hospitals crisis, the cost of living, the political crisis caused by the incumbent administration’s quest to seek re-election, the way in which three judges of the Supreme Court were recently appointed, the selection of a Central Electoral Board with strong ties to the governmental PPH, the extension of the debt in terms of time and size, the government’s indifference to the demands of citizens, the non-existence of an anti-corruption policy, etc. He asks which mathematic model can explain the claimed Presidential successes. He says the Mejia government claims the start of the social security scheme as a success, but wonders what happened to the coverage of the poor that the PRD defined as priority sectors and those who stood to benefit most from the social security program.
He says that Mejia maintains he had to face adverse circumstances, such as the bank fraud cases. Tejada Holguin says in order to make this claim, the authorities would have had to have handled the situation correctly, and questions whether this was so. He comments that when the governor of the Central Bank went public with the Baninter banking scandal, he admitted the existence of a parallel banking operation since 1989. “Then why, when he became President in 2000, weren’t measures to remedy the situation taken?” he asks. He reminds that in July 2002, the monetary authorities had granted the banking sector RD$174 million in advances and discounts, but by August that amount had increased to RD$574 million, leaping to RD$2.73 billion by September and RD$6.58 billion by December, five months before the case was brought into the open. Tejada Holguin criticizes that the authorities did not respect what was established in the monetary law and instead protected the deposits of all the large depositors in Baninter. “To put it plainly, there was not, nor is there, the capital to implement the social security scheme to benefit the poor, but there was money to rescue the big depositors affected by a bank fraud,” he chides.
He concludes by wondering which promises – and to whom they were made – are in the 99% Mejia fulfilled. “67% of the voters of this country felt it was not their promises. I hope this serves as an example to the incoming authorities.”
With the issue of Decree 820-04, President Hipolito Mejia has changed the name of the Las Americas highway to that of Autopista de Las Americas Presidente Antonio Guzman. The Las Americas highway is the east link of the city of Santo Domingo. The Mejia administration concluded a great part of the expansion works of the highway begun during the Fernandez administration. The expansion works cost tax payments almost RD$2 billion and were carried out by the office of newly elected senator for San Francisco de Macoris, Hernani Salazar, in his present position as director of the Office of Engineering Works of the Presidency.
The government announced it had issued checks for RD$250 million on the debt with the contractors of the Pan American Games venues. The contractors say the government still owes them RD$190 million.
Upon making the payment, Public Works Minister Miguel Vargas Maldonado said, "We did our part by carrying out the constructions in the allotted time and we did them right. Now it is up to the sports federations to use them adequately for the development of sport. If they are not used, they will be damaged," he acknowledged. Most of the venues already appear to be in an advanced state of abandonment, have only been used occasionally, despite the mega-investments made for their construction.
Manuel Jimenez, Presidential Palace reporter for Hoy newspaper, tells about a new category of political patronage jobs created by the Mejia administration that few knew about. He explains that when President Mejia replaced Luis Eludis Perez as consul in New York City, he created a US$5,000-a-month custom-made job for Perez, so as not to exclude him from the government payroll. Thus, the post of Dominican Commissioner in the United States was created. This job was in addition to the post held by Overseas Secretary Antonio Torres, who was supposedly in charge of assisting Dominicans in the US.
Jimenez explains that as time went by, President Mejia came to understand that a General Commissioner for the United States was not enough, and created several deputy commissioners with monthly wages of US$5,000 to US$4,000 in Miami and Washington, DC, among other places.
The jobs have come to light because of documentation issued on 24 June by special assistant to the President, Ana Gilma Madera, who established that the government owes seven months of wages to Eludi Perez or US$35,000; seven months to Manuel Duran (Miami Commissioner) or US$25,000; five months to commissioner Nelson Castillo Ledesma at US$4,000 or US$20,000; five months to commissioner Felipe Rodriguez at US$4,000 or US$20,000; and three months to commissioner Luis Victoria, or US$12,000 – for a total of US$124,000. The commissioners are asking to be paid before 16 August.
Diario Libre writes today on how banks and loans and savings associations have done great business by taking advantage of the government policy of “saving depositors.” The newspaper highlights in a front-page story today that banks attract deposits at rates under 25% and then deposit them to the Central Bank at double the yield.
In the first half of the year, commercial banks and loans and savings associations purchased an additional RD$20 billion in savings certificates in the Central Bank at annual yields of above 50%, while paying half of that in interest payments to their own depositors.
“This means that the Central Bank has become the principal source of profitability for financial entities,” says the report.
Quasi-fiscal debt at the Central Bank is said to be about RD$90 billion, and 70-90% of this debt has been deposited by commercial banks and loans and savings associations.
Moody’s Investors Service believes it likely the DR will default on payment due on the sovereign bonds, as stated in its release on 10 August. In the statement, the agency recognizes the high probability of a default scenario, attributing the DR's rating to credit risks and a two-year long deterioration in the country's credit fundamentals that led the country to apply for a grace period on payments owed to the Paris Club. The next interest payment on sovereign bond is due 18 August, two days after the change of government. "Although, to date, the government has been able and willing to make full payment before the end of the standard 30-day grace period, special circumstances have introduced additional uncertainty, increasing the possibility of a default event," said Moody's.
The government of President Hipolito Mejia could be leaving the payment of the US$27 million due on the 2013 sovereign bond up to the next administration. Central Bank Vice-Governor Felix Calvo told Hoy newspaper that the notification to make the payment was never received from Finance Minister Rafael Calderon. The payment is actually past due, leaving the DR in the 30-day grace period, but must be made by 27 August to avoid a default scenario.
Meanwhile, the foreign exchange rate found itself at a one-year record low of RD$40 to US$1 in exchange houses on Wednesday, 12 August. Dollars were being sold for RD$41 on 12 August.
International emerging market brokerage firms speculate that the decision raises the risk of restructuring.
Guillermo Caram, a former governor of the Central Bank and leading PRSC politician, expressed today his wish that legislators reject the tax reform proposal being studied in Congress. He hopes the bill presented by the PLD technicians, based on recommendations made by economists that the Mejia government had contracted, be rejected by the members of Congress and voiced his hopes that this reform take the same route as the tax package presented by the PLD government in 1996, which was rejected – which he viewed as a blessing for Dominicans and for that first Fernandez government.
He hopes the legislators do not buy the false argument that the new taxes are being demanded by the IMF, realizing that what is behind the proposals are the special-interest parties that stand to benefit. Caram said that the legislators have the negative results for the economy of previous congressional complacency on their side.
Caram also highlighted that the hasty approval of bills only makes them vulnerable to subsequent changes, referring to the monetary bill that made changes in social security and now needs to be changed again, and the border development bill that was overly generous with tax exemptions.
Economist Luis Manuel Piantini, a member of the Monetary Board and former longtime deputy governor of the Central Bank, warned that if the proposed tax reform currently under study in Congress is passed as is, it would bring major downward adjustments in private spending, which would complicate the road out of the present recession. He says the government, as a result, would collect less taxes, not more. Piantini said private spending has fallen RD$136 billion in the past year and a half, a reason for which he recommends that the new economic authorities and the IMF refrain from further penalties to the private sector. He pointed to the fact that a surplus has been achieved in the current balance of payments and said imports were already down US$1.11 billion last year. The problem was that the government had not reduced its own spending, according to him.
http://www.hoy.com.do/(1ksexj45ghxdwwjp4n4hge55)/...
Pinturas Tropical has launched a paint that is being marketed as an effective repellent of mosquitos, flies, roaches, aunts and acaro. Marketing director Carlos Lorenzo says the product has been selling well and uses the same technology that is common in Europe. The technology works because the material is porous and in the tiny openings expels the insecticide in microcrystals that eliminate the insects but do not harm humans. Tropical Plus Insect Off and Acar Off are available in 350 colors at a costs 40% higher than standard paints.
Local broadcasters will televise the Olympic Games in two stretches of three hours per day. The Telemiciro Channel 5 and Digital 15 telecast will be transmitted from 1pm to 4 pm, and again from 8pm to 11 pm. The focus will be on Dominican athletes, with particular attention given to 400-meter hurdler, Felix “Super” Sanchez and his attempt to win a gold medal. The DR has not won a gold medal in Olympic Game history. While Sanchez was chosen to be the flag carrier, he declined, explaining that he preferred to remain in the US so as to arrive in Athens in the best of shape. In his stead, the captain of the Dominican volleyball team, Francia Jackson, will carry the flag in the opening ceremony on Friday 13 August. Note that local coverage of the events will not be live, because of the seven-hour time difference, with the exception of the opening and closing ceremonies and the day on which Felix Sanchez is to compete in the 400-meter hurdle (23 August and final on 26 August). Pan American Games gold-medal boxer Juan Jose Ubaldo and table-tennis gold medalist Juan Lin Ju are scheduled to for their first competitions on 14 August.
Engineer Frank Herasme announced that every afternoon at 3:45 pm a press conference will be held to report on the performance of Dominican team in Athens.
French playwright Francis Veber’s “Le Diner de Cons” opens today at the National Theater’s main hall. The comedy, directed by Enrique Chao, brings together several of the best Dominican actors and comedians Edili, Irving Alberti, Manolo Ozuna, Luis Jose German, Tony Sanz and Christian Guthermann. It is an adaptation of the French story about a group of friends that meet every Wednesday for dinner and bring the dumbest guest they can find.
International reviewers have called the comedy intelligent and very funny. Tickets are RD$500-RD$400.
The Theodore Chasseriau exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art closes on 20 August. The exhibition is defined as the most important international cultural event of year 2004. Exhibition of 30 drawings and 30 engravings lent by the Louvre Museum and National Museum of Paris. Chasseriau was born in 1819 in El Limon, Samana, but spent most of his life in Paris.
http://www.europeanpaintings.com/19thcent/chassmot.htm
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 1996-2008. DR1. All Rights Reserved.