NewsWhore
09-08-2009, 04:30 PM
Despite the fact that Santiago is a smaller city than Santo Domingo, it has not escaped the practice of creating special payrolls for making so-called extracurricular payments and including non-essential personnel on the payroll.
An audit by the Chamber of Accounts (CC), which examined a two-year period, revealed that Mayor Jose Enrique Sued's administration had a "2nd payroll." The payroll included payment of checks totaling RD$51 million and an estimated RD$800,000 spent on the best seats at the Cibao Ball Park.
Sued's 2nd payroll, which was apparently created without council approval, included payments to people who did absolutely nothing. Hoy reports that Sued claims that the 2nd payroll was created after an agreement with council members. The CC audit also reveals that payments in excess RD$4,633,242 were made out to contractors, much more than the city government paid out for any public works project during the two-year period under scrutiny.
According to the CC audit the city government had registered costs of RD$50,510,339, but the checks totaled RD$55,143,581. There was also an extra RD$1,192,800 for sanitation programs.
The report by the CC reveals that many of the payments made by Sued's 2nd payroll were made without transparency since many payments were made in cash.
The audit also exposes high levels of nepotism in Sued's administration with nieces, nephews and in-laws receiving payments through the city government's payroll. There were also expenditures of RD$378,162 on security for Sued, without council approval, as well as RD$973,220 on holiday gift baskets for city officials. There was also the spending of RD$297,405 on plane tickets, RD$120,707 on dental services for employees and RD$50,919 on bicycle purchases for the children of government employees.
An editorial in today's Listin Diario criticizes the RD$16 billion managed by city governments with little control, as revealed by the recent CC audit, indicating these cannot be deemed merely "weaknesses" as President Leonel Fernandez recently described proven corrupt practices in his administration brought forward by investigative journalism reports.
"Too much money is allocated and spent without controls, and this country, we believe, cannot continue with his luxury, when there are so many communities that want to develop and the government is under pressure to build public works that should be built by the city governments using their own budgets," writes the editorialist.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#3)
An audit by the Chamber of Accounts (CC), which examined a two-year period, revealed that Mayor Jose Enrique Sued's administration had a "2nd payroll." The payroll included payment of checks totaling RD$51 million and an estimated RD$800,000 spent on the best seats at the Cibao Ball Park.
Sued's 2nd payroll, which was apparently created without council approval, included payments to people who did absolutely nothing. Hoy reports that Sued claims that the 2nd payroll was created after an agreement with council members. The CC audit also reveals that payments in excess RD$4,633,242 were made out to contractors, much more than the city government paid out for any public works project during the two-year period under scrutiny.
According to the CC audit the city government had registered costs of RD$50,510,339, but the checks totaled RD$55,143,581. There was also an extra RD$1,192,800 for sanitation programs.
The report by the CC reveals that many of the payments made by Sued's 2nd payroll were made without transparency since many payments were made in cash.
The audit also exposes high levels of nepotism in Sued's administration with nieces, nephews and in-laws receiving payments through the city government's payroll. There were also expenditures of RD$378,162 on security for Sued, without council approval, as well as RD$973,220 on holiday gift baskets for city officials. There was also the spending of RD$297,405 on plane tickets, RD$120,707 on dental services for employees and RD$50,919 on bicycle purchases for the children of government employees.
An editorial in today's Listin Diario criticizes the RD$16 billion managed by city governments with little control, as revealed by the recent CC audit, indicating these cannot be deemed merely "weaknesses" as President Leonel Fernandez recently described proven corrupt practices in his administration brought forward by investigative journalism reports.
"Too much money is allocated and spent without controls, and this country, we believe, cannot continue with his luxury, when there are so many communities that want to develop and the government is under pressure to build public works that should be built by the city governments using their own budgets," writes the editorialist.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#3)