The Comptroller General of the Republic confirmed, last night, that there are no differences with the Public Prosecution Office, nor with any of its subordinates, as mutual respect and institutional cooperation prevail between them.

This was stated by the Comptroller General of the Republic, Catalino Correa Hisiano, who also confirmed that the institution under his responsibility is limited to responding in a timely manner to the required requirements, while respecting the independence of the Public Prosecution Office.

He said that the Office of the Comptroller operates within the framework of its functions as the administrative body for internal control, as provided by the Constitution and the laws governing the Dominican legal system.

Likewise, specify that the decisions made by the public prosecution are outside the scope of the functions of the financial controller.

Lockward asks PGR to rescind PEPCA’s actions
Attorney Angel Lockard asked the Public Prosecutor, Myriam Germain Prieto, to cancel the actions and actions directed by the Specialized Prosecutor for Administrative Corruption Prosecution (Pepca), based on the “Investigation Report on Payments and Release of Public Debt for Expropriation and Simulated Purchase and Sale of State Lands”, prepared by the auditors Controller’s Anti-Fraud Unit.
In a complaint filed on August 15, Lockward asked the attorney general to issue instructions for the suspension of the process arising from that report, based on Section 9 of Law 133-11, the statute for the prosecution.

It also proposed the order to open an investigation into the illegal transfer and use of the September 23, 2021 document. It also instructed the Administrative Public Prosecutor to abide by the ruling, which ordered him to express his opinion on the occasion of his knowledge of the prosecution’s invalidity of the report submitted to the lawyer.

In addition, to order the Deputy Attorney General, outside of Pepca, to accompany the Administrative Attorney General at today’s hearing by the Second Chamber of the Supreme Administrative Court (TSA), at 9:00 AM.

Attorney Lockward and entity Angel Lockard and Associates filed a contentious appeal, requesting that the report be set aside, two lawsuits in financial liability against the Controller and incumbent, and against the experts who investigated the land expropriation payments, due to the questions it raised in connection with the procedures and decisions in the Jorge Mota succession cases And Bernardino Mercedes, who represents them.

In this report, the auditors of the Comptroller established the existence of alleged fraudulent maneuvers that took place between February and July of 2020, from the Ministry of Finance and National Assets, the State Board of Sugar and the National Real Estate Directorate, at the expense of the Dominican State, for approximately $12,540,449,339.27.

According to the report, these maneuvers were made through multiple payments to third parties, of public debt, under the credit assignment method, which arose from expropriations of land rights.

Defense
The Comptroller’s experts asked the TSA’s First Chamber, to dismiss the report of the lawsuit brought against them by Lockord, “because it was based on illegally obtained evidence.” In this sense, they ask to announce the denunciation of the illegal acquisition of the “internal and confidential report” before the Office of the Public Prosecutor and before the Office of the Administrative Public Prosecutor.

The application was submitted by the auditors César Alberto Thomas Castillo, Jersey Mateo Medina and Juan Miguel Andrés Flaquer, through attorneys Juan Cuevas and Osiris Desla Inoa.

In the event that the plaintiffs oppose the exclusion, they ask the court to dismiss the process until the investigations into the unlawful access to the report have been completed by the attorney general’s office and the administrative attorney.

They also ask to state that at the time of the financial liability action filed against them on January 3, 2022, there was no opposition and/or impediment for the plaintiffs to make all necessary arrangements, in order to collect them from the state. The debt they claim to be creditors.

They say they have not assumed any financial responsibility and are asking the court to dismiss the case.

the report
Based on the expert report from the Comptroller General’s Office of Fraud Prevention, the Ministry of Finance suspended expropriation payments to 89 people worth 17 billion pesos, due to the opposition of Pepca.

to delegate
Pepca acted pursuant to Judicial Decision No. 0010 of December 29, 2021 by the Coordination Judge of the Courts of Inquiry.

trusted
The Office of the Comptroller General has established that this report is not official, but merely a private and confidential internal procedure,” and considered that it should not be used by the Office of the Specialized Public Prosecutor for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption to repel objections.