Envoy to Portugal uncovers latest Dominican Govt. scandal

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic’s Ambassador to Portugal recently revealed that the Embassy in Lisbon receives just US$16,162 per month and not US$25,000 as in Foreign Ministry (Mirex) documents assert, a revelation that uncovers the latest scandal in the agency during the administration headed by Danilo Medina.

Jaime Duran Hernando (Jimmy), in a letter to outlet acento.com.do, asks why Mirex documents show a much higher allocation than what the embassy really gets.

"I wouldn’t think of asking the current Mirex Minister to explain the situation encountered. I presume he does not know. What I would ask is what his plans are to correct an inherited and discriminatory situation," the former Public Works Minister said in his letter.

He notes that when he left Public Works during Leonel Fernández first administration (1996), he said publicly that he left the post with less money than when he started. "And that was true, as implausible as that seems today. Today I have more, but not money, rather experience in the effort to appear and be honest, in circumstances where that virtue seems to have lost all value and meaning,"

What he found in Lisbon

"Only two officials did their jobs. I headed the Mission’s first Assembly with them,” Durán says of what he found when he arrived in Lisbon in May 6, 2011.

“There were 15 others who didn’t attend, and I never saw them. I immediately reported the situation to the President. I recently sent another note to the Ministry with a list of officials who neither attend nor have ever attended in the more than three years of my tenure,” Duran said.

“There are 10 names which appear, with the 10 positions, and the numbers of the 10 Executive orders by which they were appointed. I also sent the list of the officials who regularly attend, they are now 8, including the Mission Chief of Staff," he said.