Santo Domingo.– The Association of Publishers and Distributors of Textbooks of the Dominican Republic (ASEDILIRD), went to the General Directorate of Public Purchasing and Contractingwhere he reiterated the transparency and neatness with which five of its members participated and won in the tender carried out by the Ministry of Education for the award of Secondary school textbooks.
Juan Colón, president of ASEDILIRD, deposited a communication addressed to Carlos Pimentel, general director of Public Procurement, through which he indicated that his affiliates are fully available to clarify any doubt or concern before that entity, while specifying that they won said tender in fair competition and obtaining the best grades.
“We came here to deposit a letter containing the arguments that we expressed to the Director of Purchasing and Contracting, indicating our transparency in the process. And we also deposit the resolution of the Ministry of Education through which it is shown that our process was totally transparent. And a third document containing the notes obtained by all the houses that participated, obviously including ours and where with a simple glance we realize that our publishing houses obtained much higher notes than the others”, stated Colón.
On his side, the renowned writer Avelino Stanley said that they went to the Public Procurement and Contracting Directorate because “we want to reiterate that our participation was absolutely transparent.”
Stanley ruled out that there has been collusion between Dominican publishers, as some interested sectors have wanted to point out, and pointed out that each company bid on different lots or areas. “It is not about any products, it is about textbooks that we in a particular way took to evaluation and were evaluated. So there can be collusion when there are, for example, many microphones for sale, and then you offer microphones and so do I; but in textbooks it is different. I offered Spanish Language books, Juan offered Social Science books, Robin offered Physical Education books, so there can be no collusion because it is not the same product, although they are textbooks”.
He emphasized that “we who know that we participate in a transparent process, have come here to defend our rights and we will do the same in any scenario.”
In the communication deposited by ASEDILIRD it is stated that this entity is an open space and has served to establish a strategic alliance between Dominican writers and textbook publishers with the sole purpose of defending the national book industry, since it has always been in hands of foreign multinationals, relegating Dominican companies to the background.
It indicates that the textbooks offered by Dominican authors and that were evaluated by the General Directorate of Curriculum of the Ministry of Education through the Double Blind format (method in which the authors do not know who is evaluating them and the evaluators do not know who evaluate), they obtained the highest marks.
He cites the cases of: Editorial Cocolo, which in Spanish Language obtained a rating of 97.3; CP Editions in Mathematics which reached 91; United Editions of the Caribbean in Physical Education that obtained 98.5; Editora Camar that in Social Sciences reached 98 and Ediciones Salomé that in Comprehensive, Human and Religious Education obtained 98 points. These ratings show the quality of textbooks made by Dominican authors.
ASEDILIRD reiterates that it will defend the rights of its associates because the adjudication of its members has been fair and because its sole purpose is to promote the national book industry.
