Builders feel the dark side of government contracts

Santo Domingo.- "We haven’t been killed but we aremorally dead, our families are having a hard time, and our properties areseized and hocked," said Julius Caesar Nin, one of the more than 100 contractorsstill owed money after concluding public works.

Nin referred to the tragic suicide of architect Dario Rodriguez,who took his own life last year in the offices of the State Supervisory EngineersOffice (OISOE) which owed him more than RD$1.0 million , "it seems thatthat’s the only way we can try to collect what’s owed us."

The complaints were voiced in a Tuesday press conference atthe Dominican Engineers, Architects and Surveyors Guild (CODIA), by contractorswho are owed money by several government agencies.

Nin said the government has been "sluggish" in payingand warned the authorities of protests in the streets.

"They neither pay us, nor receive us, nor answer thephone," said engineer Buenaventura García, who’s owned money by the PublicWorks Ministry since 2007.

"We appeal to president Danilo Medina, the Minister ofPublic Works, the director of the OISOE, the Minister of Agriculture, ofEducation, CAASD at INDHRI (utilities) and all state institutions which engineersdepend on and the which have debts with us," said Nin.

"We appeal to their human sensitivity so that there’sno other David Rodriguez."