SANTO DOMINGO – The Justice and Transparency Foundation (FJT) yesterday called for the urgent intervention of President Luis Abinader to stop the “marathon festival” of multimillion-dollar real estate rental contracts that government officials are carrying out “irrationally, disproportionately, and in violation of the Constitution.”
“Public officials have been doing this for years, now it has been extended and deepened in the current government administration, spending tens of thousands and billions of pesos, to the detriment of public assets,” said the entity's vice president, Máximo Calzado Reyes.
The jurist warned that this represents an illegality on the part of the Government, since rental contracts or others that exceed 200 minimum wages in the public sector cannot be signed by President Luis Abinader, and must, as a requirement, be known by the National Congress.
Reyes referred to Article 128 of the Magna Carta, which establishes and specifies the powers of the first president to alienate or affect national revenues, on a public asset or resource, as a control even for the president of the republic, must be ratified and approved by the National Congress, from which the unconstitutionality and illegality of the aforementioned contracts can be inferred
"It has the power to enter into contracts, submitting them to the approval of the National Congress when they contain provisions relating to the allocation of national revenues, the alienation of State property, the raising of loans or when they stipulate tax exemptions in general, in accordance with the Constitution.
The maximum amount for which such contracts and exemptions can be signed by the President of the Republic without congressional approval will be 200 minimum wages of the public sector,” says the subparagraph of paragraph two.
Calzado Reyes condemned the widespread practice of this and other governments, with exorbitant rents for several constitutional periods and outside the ordinary annual planning of the General State Budget.
He asserted that this has been evidenced by the scandals recorded in the Government Office of Information and Communication Technologies (Ogitc), which is being questioned for finalizing a bidding process to rent a building for 10 years for a value of RD$1.4 billion.
The head of the institution, Bartolomé Pujols, assured that this procedure carried out with Inmobiliaria Reservas and AFI Reservas, a state-owned company, is justified because it avoids having to have all the money available to buy real estate.
Twice
This is the second time since his swearing-in as director of the OGTIC in 2023 that Bartolomé Pujals has been questioned about alleged embezzlement of funds during the bidding process. At the end of that year, he sent a letter denying an alleged threat made against journalist Kelvin Faña, who had repeatedly denounced Pujals for violating Law 340-06 on Public Procurement.
Source: Listín Diario.
