» By: Donald Harrison
SANTO DOMINGO. - Most of family heads in Dominican Republic are unemployed, according to the results of the survey Enhogar 2005, conducted by National Statistics Office (ONE). For 51.6% of the Dominican heads of households the country's main problem is unemployment, followed by crime, with 48.3%, and the lack of electricity with 40.4%. ONE director Pablo Tactuk affirmed that the high cost of living constitutes the fourth problem that most concerns Dominicans, with 36.6% of those surveyed responding so. The year also was marked by political scandals within the governing Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) -including corruption and swindle- standing out among these the scandal of the I.D. cards from the National Investigations Department (DNI) that concluded several days ago in Manhattan Criminal Court with a guilty plea by Juan Soler, president of the PLD's local branch and of a political movement which supported Fernandez in the last elections. He is expected to get a one year jail sentence in January. Another scandal stemmed from the appointments of 25 "bottles" -people who get salaries and serve no purpose other than cronyism- including vice consuls, nearly 50 assistants, more than 40 officials in the United Nations and 55 inspectors and assistants of the Presidency, eroding the confidence in the government's announced fight against corruption. The designation of the Consultative Council could, according to the people consulted, is seen as the only institutional accomplishment, but the organization whose, members are honorary, could only stage one event, pressed by the Presidents presence last September. Still expected from that event is the diagnosis in relation to the Dominican Diaspora in New York. Some designations have also locally irritated the governing party, including the appointment Franklin Gutiérrez as Culture Commissioner in the United States, who is questioned for the handling of US$100,000 which president Salvador Jorge Blanco (1982-1986) gave to a local commission to open the House of Culture. Gutiérrez has not convincingly explained the whereabouts of those funds and many local party leaders see his swearing in with scorn. The American ideas of overtaxing, borrowing and starving people to death by holding the dollar down with IMF money just isn't working....Interest rates have been lowered to earth shaking levels. An idea that works in the US but not in a country like the Dominican Republic