NewsWhore
01-10-2008, 01:20 PM
Senate president Reinaldo Pared Perez denied yesterday's accusations by Chamber of Deputies president Julio Cesar Valentin that the Executive Branch and the Senate had included phantom NGOs in the 2008 budget. Hoy quotes Pared as saying "we have not included one NGO, let that be clear" but he did not provide more detail to back this up. This completely contradicts Valentin's claims that this year's budget included RD$1 billion for special NGOs. Valentin specified Senator Charlie Mariotti's NGO which was assigned RD$5.4 million and others belonging to Senator Cristina Lizardo who will receive RD$2.4 million for her NGOs. Listin Diario reports that the discussion became heated as Deputies challenged the Senators' inclusion of NGOs. Partido Popular Cristiano representative Radhames Castro pointed out the generous allocations to Lizardo and Marrioti's NGOs. Castro added that even after the NGOs were abolished, Mariotti and Lizardo continued to head NGOs that manage RD$12 million per year. Castro said that Mariotti, for example, had been critical of the Deputies' swift approval the budget in December, but never queried the legality of his own NGO, which was included in the budget. Christian Paredes, spokesperson for the PLD block, said that the budget should have been re-assessed in order to adjust the allocations for Education, Public Health, the Judicial Branch and the UASD University, while PRSC spokesperson Ramon Rogelio Genao said that the 2008 budget had to be approved quickly so that the government didn't continue functioning with the 2007 budget. However, Santiago deputy Angel Acosta accused Genao of supporting the budget because it includes one of his own NGOs. Even though there has been much discussion about the NGOs, Listin Diario writes that Valentin met with budget director Luis Hernandez for two hours before the Deputies sat down to review the budget.
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