‘Thieves,’ top Dominican industrialist calls 2 ex presidents

Santo Domingo.- The president of the Herrera and Santo Domingo Province Industries Association (AEIH) on Tuesday slammed two former presidents, a mogul and a ‘prime minister” of the previous administration as “thieves” who signed off on the management contract for the Santo Domingo-Samana Highway, for which he affirms Dominican taxpayers will be paying a “shadow toll” during the next 30 years.

Victor Castro’s allegation comes just one day after he announced the Association’s support for the effort by Justice minister Francisco Dominguez to prosecute corrupt officials.

said Dominicans should ask former presidents Leonel Fernandez and Hipolito Mejia, former Public Works minister Miguel Vargas and Fernandez’s “prime minister,” why they signed off on contract “whose owners aren’t the only thieves.”

“These were the thieves behind the Santo Domingo-Samana Highway, where for 30 years we’ll be paying a shadow toll to the owners, who aren’t the only thieves, you have to look at the actors who singed off on that road,” the industrialist said.

The industrialist, interviewed by Huchi Lora and Amelia Deschamps on Telesistema, Channel 11, also slammed the country’s courts for being “sequestered” by “echelons of power,” that he affirms won’t convict corrupt officials. “Dominican Republic courts are sequestered, no corrupt official will be convicted by those courts, the echelons of power will not act against those thieves, that’s the reality of this county.”