NewsWhore
07-20-2007, 07:00 PM
Eligio Jaquez, who served as Agriculture Minister during the Hipolito Mejia presidency, and seven other former government employees have been found innocent of charges of irregular allocations of greenhouses during the Mejia administration. Listin Diario writes that the legal authorities were not able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Jaquez and former government employees Antonio Fabelo Medina, Sergio Uribe Castro, Andres Escarraman Hernandez, Porfirio Escarraman, Jose Sanchez Reina, Regino Valera de los Santos and Leonardo Francisco Sosa were guilty.
The greenhouse case went to court in 2005 after the Ministry of Agriculture reported that at least 55 of the 200 greenhouses built at government expense were distributed to officials in the Mejia administration and accused these people of violating the Penal Code and the rules on the Law of Civil Service and the Administrative Career. In a press conference, the deputy minister of agriculture and director of the programs that deal with marketing and frozen foods (PROFRIN), Eusebio Guzman said that a brother of former Agriculture Minister Eligio Jaquez and many of his friends received greenhouses at the government's expense. Jaquez responded by saying that officials in the current administration also received greenhouses, but he did not identify them. As reported in Hoy newspaper, according to Guzman other beneficiaries of the greenhouses, which are valued at US$292,000, were former Agriculture Minister Jose Fabelo; Carlos Baez and Sergio Uribe, former directors of PROFRIN; Leonidas Batista, the former head of the Dominican Coffee Council (CODOCAFE), former deputy minister of Environment, Andres Rafael Escarraman; Jose Rafael Escarraman, an assistant at the National Forestry School; Ramon Urena Torres, another deputy minister of Environment; the former governor of San Jose de Ocoa, Leovigildo Bello Guerrero. Even the former Presidential Press Secretary, Luis Gonzalez Fabra got one, according to Guzman. The whole thing is "a national embarrassment", with one family getting as many as three or four greenhouses and others using fronts to obtain the installations, as reported.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)
The greenhouse case went to court in 2005 after the Ministry of Agriculture reported that at least 55 of the 200 greenhouses built at government expense were distributed to officials in the Mejia administration and accused these people of violating the Penal Code and the rules on the Law of Civil Service and the Administrative Career. In a press conference, the deputy minister of agriculture and director of the programs that deal with marketing and frozen foods (PROFRIN), Eusebio Guzman said that a brother of former Agriculture Minister Eligio Jaquez and many of his friends received greenhouses at the government's expense. Jaquez responded by saying that officials in the current administration also received greenhouses, but he did not identify them. As reported in Hoy newspaper, according to Guzman other beneficiaries of the greenhouses, which are valued at US$292,000, were former Agriculture Minister Jose Fabelo; Carlos Baez and Sergio Uribe, former directors of PROFRIN; Leonidas Batista, the former head of the Dominican Coffee Council (CODOCAFE), former deputy minister of Environment, Andres Rafael Escarraman; Jose Rafael Escarraman, an assistant at the National Forestry School; Ramon Urena Torres, another deputy minister of Environment; the former governor of San Jose de Ocoa, Leovigildo Bello Guerrero. Even the former Presidential Press Secretary, Luis Gonzalez Fabra got one, according to Guzman. The whole thing is "a national embarrassment", with one family getting as many as three or four greenhouses and others using fronts to obtain the installations, as reported.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)