The president of the People’s Force (FP), Leonel Fernández, said yesterday that the government has failed to explain what public trusts consist of and affirmed that this figure does not exist because the current law is about private trusts.
Fernández indicated that there are many doubts in the population about the scope, benefits and risks for the country with the Punta Catalina trust.
“There is a law from 2011 that establishes the trust as a legal figure for the field of private law, regarding real estate and mortgage. The idea of a public trust legally does not exist, it appears marginally in the regulations that apply to that trust law for the purpose of promoting the real estate-mortgage industry”, explained the former president of the Republic.
He also clarified that the terminal is one of the cases, but that there are currently approximately 20 trust initiatives that have not been explained to the population, including that of the National Police.
According to Fernández, the contract for the Punta Catalina trust allows private investment, however, it does not establish the limit of this, which he considered may have a vocation for privatization. “What distinguishes this from the Capitalization Law approved in 1999, where the capital that could be invested had a fixed limit that prevented State assets from passing into private hands,” he said.
He argued that given the doubts that his party has generated, he sees the issue with concern. “What we see as a concern in the matter of Punta Catalina is that Punta Catalina is already a public asset, that was built with funds from the Dominican State, converting a public asset into a trust patrimony, where it is said that it is not to privatize Punta Catalina, but that allows that trust for 30 years, authorizes national and international private investment and it is not known what is the maximum acceptable amount of that investment”, he considered.
The former president argued that his party proposes that it be known in public hearings in the Senate. “Our party has argued that public hearings be opened in the Senate so that there is a real debate on what a trust means for the Punta Catalina electrical terminal, but also to consider the other types of trust,” he said.
The Punta Catalina trust approved in the Chamber of Deputies has generated controversy and President Luis Abinader denied that it is intended to be privatized.
Miguel Ortega and others join the Fuerza Pueblo
Communicator Miguel Ortega was sworn into the People’s Force (FP) after he resigned from the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM). Ortega supported the candidacy of President Luis Abinader, but less than a year into his government he publicly expressed his disagreement and resigned. During the Fernández governments, Ortega was deputy director of the Government Information Center. Other figures of religion and art entered the FP.
