By Nelson Núñez
Special for El Inmobiliario
Dominican society has been asking this question for a long time. And it's quite common for this question to be a recurring topic of discussion among the members of the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors (CODIA).
I'm going to analyze what I understand as the reason why engineers don't fight for their individual interests, much less for group interests.
The problem begins when we start high school; from there, we begin to think like a petty bourgeois, thinking that when we go to university to study engineering or architecture, immediately upon graduating, we will rise in social class and become small business owners.
During our university studies, we saw some professors who were engineers and architects, arriving to teach in a nice truck or car. Other professors didn't attend the university at all due to their many professional commitments.
Engineers and architects, by their very nature, think and act like highly individualistic people. They don't even share details with other colleagues about how contracting institutions operate, nor do they give you tips on how to get into an office or department to make a contact. In fact, I would say that, in this respect, we act in bad faith.
We saw how Odebrecht was awarded these projects through a bidding process and how they were overvalued, without any protest from engineers or architects. Much less from the CODIA (Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors). Moreover, when there was a backlash from the Green March movement, a group of engineers and architects, who were subcontractors for that company, came out in defense of Odebrecht through paid advertisementsin the print media.
Since its founding in January 1963, the CODIA (Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors) has been characterized over these 61 years by two distinct periods, which I have called a period of light and a period of shadow. The period of light encompassed the founders and a group of engineers and architects who were anti-Trujillo. Later, during the governments of Dr. Joaquín Balaguer, they adopted a method of political struggle against the awarding of public works contracts without competitive bidding.
There was a short transition period, in which some union members opposed the various political factions that intervened in CODIA at the end of the 1980s.
But the political parties prevailed, managing to silence CODIA and turning it into a kind of grassroots committee of the ruling party, and transforming it into a completely pro-government union.
The ruling party easily herds engineers, architects, surveyors, public employees, and party members like sheep to vote for the party's pre-selected candidate. And they do this year after year, with two or three thousand public employees, whom they force to vote under threat of dismissal. The CODIA's bylaws require that members be in good standing to vote. This is something the governments in power exploit to bring all their members up to date. This has made CODIA complicit with successive governments in the country and has damaged the institution, making it complicit in the government's silenceregarding its actions.
The Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors (CODIA), far from advocating for the interests of its members and for their dignity, rights, duties, and professional development, disregards its responsibilities, turning its back on its members in matters related to professional practice and subjecting them to abuses by the government, such as non-payment for completed work and projects. These practices are not tolerated by the Dominican Association of Teachers (ADP) or the Dominican Medical Association (CMD). Both of these institutions elect their leadership from opposition parties, a strategy that guarantees them better results in achieving their objectives.
In fact, the Dominican government is the country's largest employer, which is why engineers and architects are afraid to confront it. Furthermore, the CODIA's assembly of representatives, board of directors, and support structure are deeply intertwined with government authorities.
Neoliberal policies, implemented by the PLD governments starting in 1996, and the trade agreement with the United States and Central American countries, better known by its acronym DR-CAFTA, led to the country having to enact a law regulating the purchase of goods and the awarding of public works contracts.
Through the application of Law 340-06 and its amendments, the bidding documents, which are essentially tailor-made for the favored bidders—those close associates of ministers and directors—are so effective that in the vast majority of tenders, even the winning bidder fails to meet the requirements. For example, the INTRANT contract for the installation of traffic lights on the country's main avenues. This law has effectively become the officialization and legalization of this favoritism.
The vast majority of engineers and architects from CODIA cannot access public tenders, nor the lotteries for works, nor price comparisons because Law 340-06 and its modifications, through Law 449-06, have prevented them from doing so for a period of more than (10) years.
