[DR1] Another Brineman blast

[NewsWhore]

Elena Brineman is nearing the end of her six-year tour of service in the DR with USAID. She has worked long and hard to bring some positive development to thousands of Dominicans, and now she is holding nothing back. Last week she told the country that their educational system was failing. This week she starts off by bluntly stating that "corruption is holding back Dominican development." Brineman could not have been clearer: "investors do not bring resources to corrupt countries." The USAID director said that local corruption not only affects institutionalism but it also affects the country's social, economic and political systems. She urged Congress to pass the legislation that does away with the so-called "grado a grado" system, which is designed to promote governmental patronage. For Brineman, one major problem is that the government approves "the legal framework of the laws but then fails to enforce them". On the issue of the ever-present electricity crisis, Brineman says that she is convinced that the problem is caused by the theft of electricity, fraud and corruption. During a TV interview by Servio Tulio Castanos for the Institutionalism and Justice program that airs on Channel 37 (CDN), Brineman touched on things like the hospitals where corruption also has a social impact. She did not mince words when she said, "if you look at the country from a developmental point of view, you cannot have development with this corruption; it affects all the institutions, each and every one of the institutions in the country." Brineman ended her remarks by saying that one good thing is that the issue of corruption is out in the open and that a recent poll said that 21% of the population felt that corruption was the Dominican Republic's principal problem.

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