SANTO DOMINGO. – The presidential candidate of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), Miguel Vargas, opined that the National Police continues with a discredited image because the reform of this institution has remained a promise.
During a meeting with PRD supporters in District 3 of the National District, he said that “it is worrying that, in the midst of a supposed reform, the institution presents a marked and sustained deterioration, while the confidence of the population is increasingly damaged, which it undermines credibility.”
He called attention to “the increase in extrajudicial deaths, the excesses against the population and the serious limitations in the capacity (of the Police) in their investigative processes.”
He highlighted “the worrying events exhibited in the recent past, such as the episode where an innocent child perished in Santiago.”
In his opinion, this shows the need for more implementation of reliable, efficient, and effective protocols by the so-called law enforcement body.
“The most painful thing is that the police reform we are talking about was offered long before this government started, specifically in the last electoral campaign,” he said.
He said that the president when he was a candidate, promised that in the first year of his administration, he would have solved the security problem as well as the immigration problem, and it has been the opposite.
“Crime has grown in the country, as well as the exodus of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic, causing difficult situations, above all, in the health and education budget of our nation,” he added.
INSUFFICIENT SALARY INCREASE
Miguel Vargas assured that the police force is more deteriorated than before the current management.
“The police officers are worse off in terms of conditions, because everything in the country has gone up: energy, food, gas, gasoline, everything has gone up and the people are suffering from that,” he said.
“And now they want to disguise a salary increase, talking about 19% when it really is 15%, but we already have inflation at 20% and, obviously, the money is not going to reach the Dominican people for their basic needs, their basket basic family, which has gone through the roof,” he clarified.
During the tour and meeting with the PRD supporters, Miguel Vargas was accompanied by the president of the PRD in the National District, Rafael (Fello) Suberví, and other party leaders in the capital.
