Saturday 16 June 2007
SANTO DOMINGO.- The Dominican Justice Ministry today Friday said the company Shell has been defrauding the country out of tens of millions of dollars for a long time, and will begin interrogations next week to establish responsibilities.
Corruption Prevention Department (Depreco) director Octavio Líster said he suspects the fraud could be a reiterated practice on the part of Shell, which will require a thorough investigation. “Above all remember that we are talking about an equal partner with the Dominican State as far as shares and that it’s a foreign multinational company.”
Meanwhile Chamber of Deputies president Julio Cesar Valentin said if proven, the fraud should be denounced abroad, and that the Government has the right to denounce it at the international level.
He said Dominican legislation has the mechanisms to penalize that type of fraud. “Consequently, the Dominican State must be sufficiently diligence and seek the legal actions which are pertinent to sanction the people responsible in this.”
This morning Shell said today it agrees with the investigation in the Dominican Petroleum Refinery to clarify the denunciation of altered invoices and proposed the inclusion of all aspects under question, “for the sake of transparency that should prevail in all mixed capital partnerships between a private company and the State.”
http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=24319