Top Deputy gripes but discloses payroll under pressure

Santo Domingo.- Despite having published the Chamber of Deputies’ payroll in detail under pressure, its president Abel Martinez affirms that the law doesn’t require him to do so.

The measure comes in the heels of constant complaints by citizens and the media, headed by newspaper El Caribe.

And though the lower Chamber on Monday published all the names on its payroll, it raises even more questions.

As noted in the document kept under raps for years, 975 people figure as career employees of the legislative chamber, while 780 are as freely appointed personnel, who form part of the 190 deputies’ work teams.

In the list published on the website www.camaradediputados.gob.do on the section Transparency, the pro-government minority PRSC party, with just nine lawmakers, has 50 people on that payroll, while the opposition PRD’s 79 deputies, have a staff of only 37.

Coincidentally, employees native of Santiago, Martinez’s electoral district, are among the best paid and include the chief of staff, two assistants and senior auditors and the Legal Adviser, whose wages far exceeds that of their peers.

Martinez complained of disclosing the payroll despite an alleged court ruling which waived him from doing so, but didn’t specify.

The measure, he said, is evidence of the lower Chamber’s policy of transparency on its financial operations.