SANTO DOMINGO - Engineer Miguel Liberato denounced that after fourteen years of delivering public works through various contracts, the Dominican State still owes him around RD$40 million for the work carried out, which he claims was executed with his own resources from his company Ingenieros Liberato & Asociados, SRL.
“The final estimate was 82 million to complete the project. Of that sum, 40 million remains to be recovered,” he explained in statements to El Inmobiliario.
The professional states that years after successfully completing the UASD-Mao Regional University Center, since 2020, he has unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the outstanding payment from the Ministry of Housing, Habitat and Buildings (MIVHED) and the Ministry of Finance , as he formally requested from Minister Carlos Bonilla. To date, he asserts that he has received no formal response and the process has not been resumed.
“The officials of this government, in the 5 years they have been in power, have not sought any solution to the alleged loss of documents when in reality they could have proceeded with a documentary reconstruction of the files,” he emphasized.
Liberato warned that he is not the only one affected by these irregularities. He revealed that 82 other contractors, grouped under the Codiano Institutional Committee (CIC), face similar obstacles. “The main one is that the contracting institutions (11 in total) claim that documents they generate, which are required by the Ministry of Finance to process payments, have disappeared from their files,” the engineer explained.
The construction professional formally requested the Attorney General's Office and the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (PEPCA) to conduct a criminal, disciplinary, and administrative investigation for what he considers to be the willful obstruction of the payment processing procedureby the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MIVHED) and the Ministry of Finance.
In the investigation request, filed on July 10 and addressed to Attorney General Yeni Berenice Reynoso and Magistrate Wilson Camacho, Liberato details a series of actions that, he alleges, have "intentionally" prevented him from being recognized and paid the debt derived from three contracts signed in 2010 with the now defunct Office of State Works Supervising Engineers (Oisoe).
"Lost" documents, phantom termination, and administrative hurdles
The case is based on more than 30 pages of official documentation, in which three specific situations are identified that, in their opinion, constitute administrative prevarication, abuse of authority, falsification of documents and violation of due process.
One of the files, corresponding to contract FB-023-2010, was halted due to an alleged termination, which was never officially notified to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MIVHED) and lacks any legal basis, as admitted by MIVHED itself through its Office of Free Access to Information. Document OAI-087-2025 expressly states that “there is no record to prove the termination,” even though the Ministry of Finance used this argument to return the payment file.
In a second case, concerning contract FB-105-2010, MIVED deliberately failed to send the Final Acceptance Certificate required by the Ministry of Finance. However, a Provisional Acceptance Certificate, which MIVED itself had filed, was later located, and it states:
“The work was received satisfactorily in accordance with the technical specifications, quality standards and other corresponding construction documents. Consequently, this provisional acceptance is issued, which will become Final Acceptance when the contractor presents the latent defects insurance policy.”.
The engineer presented a letter from Banreservas Insurance (DTRG-333/24), which indicates that it is not possible to issue a hidden defects policy for a work that has been in use for more than one year, which represents a material impossibility of complying with that requirement, since the construction was delivered almost 14 years ago.
“The contract was executed and the work was inaugurated in August 2011, which confirms its delivery and entry into operation,” reiterates the request addressed to the Public Prosecutor's Office.
In the third documented case , the Ministry of Finance declared the final acceptance certificates for contracts FB-023-2010 and FB-114-2010 invalid, alleging that the dates of the quantity take-offs did not coincide with the dates of the certificates. However, the engineer points out that “this claim by the Ministry of Finance is a prime example of ignorance regarding administrative competence. The final acceptance certificates and the final quantity take-offs are completely different and independent.”
In his final demands, he requests the Public Prosecutor's Office to:
- Opening of a criminal investigation for malfeasance and abuse of power
- Audit of the MIVHED's Deputy Finance Minister for negligence in the search for documents
- Legal validation of the Provisional Acceptance Certificate as a sufficient document for final payment
- Financial compensation for damages arising from late payment
