a mere bag of shells

Recap the Central Bank, as in pay the old Baninter quasi-fiscal deficit, which was buried, but undead.

"approved without any modifications" - this is a red flad as to the ineffectiveness of ANY legislative body. There are three core functions of legislative bodies:

1) Law Making
2) Representation
3) OVERSIGHT of the executive branch!!!

lets put aside the two first functions, and focus on Oversight. Here are some indicators on whether the Legislative Branch is achieving this function:

a) Introduction of professional budget staff to review budget proposals
b) Number of executive initiative questioned or blocked by legislature
c) Number of investigations to detect waste and corruption, formal audit or evaluation to assess program effectiveness or efficiency, and hearings to air issues or concerns
d) Mechanisms to confirm and remove executive appointments
e) Number of official reports that the executive have to submit to the legislature
f) Number of times that government ministers responded to inquiries/subpoena by legislators

g) Number of mechanisms in place to gather data about compliance
h) Number of censured, fined, or removed ministers or other officials who did not comply with legislature
i) Number of changes proposed/made by legislature to budget

Baldy what are you doing up their at the big pig trough ? Obozo invite you for the holidays ?

Does anyone know what percentage of GDP this is?

Its only righ that the state takes more if the economy grows... It wrong when they misspend it or worse when they outright steal it....

blue, ???? anyhow, I'm sure your comment was insight, witty, funny, or all of the above.

cheers,

Baldy seriously are we going to lose you to the big leagues or are you just visiting the Smithsonian ...dont go and forget your roots .....Happy Holidays Baldoria to you and your family

In yesterday’s El Caribe lawyer Marisol Vicens Bello writes that the Dominican Republic has become a pirate state. She criticizes the fact that government officials impose their vision, "and worse still, often their own projects." Vicens criticizes the way that many government officials only promote projects in which they are "partners." She says this probably occurs because each President believes that government posts are gifts to be distributed among allies, family or friends, without the skills or qualifications for the job, and that this has obviously caused serious damage to our country.

"In what appears to be a cynical game or a disregard for institutions and the nation, the important thing is to fill the posts to keep the party members or allies contented and under control. This practice has become generalized and is repeated at all levels so that each government official then creates his own fiefdom to benefit his own, at a high cost in inefficiency and corruption. That is why the promoters of projects, loans and deals that mutate from government to government, and preposterous affairs just keep recurring." Vicens says that this has distorted public service, turning it into an individual wealth creation tool, as opposing to serving the common good. She says that it now serves purposes contrary to those for which the department was established.

She concludes: "If we allow every government official to believe that he has a free hand to do whatever he likes in his department, above the law and national interests or to use the posts for spurious purposes without consequences from the authority that appoints them, then we will end up being a pirate state, uncontrollable even by the authorities themselves."

She says that is why there are so many police and military officers who are criminals, inspectors and supervisors who are complicit in acts that they should be controlling, and government officials who are more enemies of the objectives they should be facilitating. "No country can progress in these conditions, even if billions are spent on propaganda that states the contrary. The President needs to fire and prosecute the officials who do not fulfill their role because his commitment is to the people who elected him and not with those who "worked hard in the campaign." If this does not happen he will be affected by the negative consequences," she writes.

Caption:

Every one who has a new jeepeta and wants to ratifiy the provision in this budget that provides for another one at taxpayer's expense, please raise your hand.

By the way, most importantly the government is projecting an income of about 80% of what they are planning to spend. The rest will be borrowed.

Juanb,

Barrister Vincens only stated the obvious. Question is: what are we going to do about it?

I remain convinced that positive change, leading to eradication of corruption and status quo in DR, can only come by force and political and cultural revolutions.

The ideals of Bastille and the Russian revolution established good precedent.

I just don't know if there are any patriots of vision, courage and integrity wotrhy of picking up and carrying the torch and delivering us from this sad predicament.

I don't trust any Dominican politicos or officials, even the usual suspects that will soon be mentioned in ensuing rebuttals.

MJEV.

There is no one. There is no hope. All is lost, or will soon be.

com'on... we cannot retreat to the convinience of being overwhelmed! Let me repeat, WE CANNOT RETREAT TO THE CONVINIENCE OF BEING OVERWHELMED!!!

changing society, specially our political system, is a daunting, and seemingly a sisyphean, task. But again, I repeat, WE CANNOT RETREAT TO THE CONVINIENCE OF BEING OVERWHELMED!!!

So what shall be done? we can't trust the parties to create mechanisms that will "check" their power. We can't trust politicos to do the same. That leaves us w/ the public, which will not mobilize unless there is a crisis or an enlighten leader rises to fight for change. We are also left w/ civil society organizations (CSOs)... I think CSOs are our best hope!!! They can act as watch-dogs and publicize the lack of transparency and accountability. They can also mobilize people around a particular cause. In short, robust & capable CSOs can act as a coutner weight against the politicos.

Now alls we need to do is support CSOs and turn out to pressure the G.

People don't change, no matter what their party affiliation is! look back into our history you will see
"once a Dominican will always be one". JUAN PABLO DUARTE ,son of a wealthy merchant who had hopes for his future REPUBLIC, finished his days in poverty and exile from his beloved country in VENEZUELA . A man that gave everything he had for his country's independece from Haiti. Son of Spaniards and educated in Spain,nontheless comes back to the Island full of aspirations and great ideas to be betrayed by SANTANA,who handed over ESPANOLA to Spain. All these after the Haitians thru both the French and the Spaniards out. A revolution like France or Russia as( glomarexplorer) stated is impossible,since you could not diferentiate the ill intentioned and selfish, from the well intentioned citizens.DR had many ideologist in its history but its citizen betrayed those ideas by becoming selfish,glutons for power as well as wealth.Not all was their doing . THE MONRROE DOCTRINE helped.