Spain and Colombia are participating in the process of transformation and modernization of the Dominican National Police, whose image has deteriorated by leaps and bounds in recent months, announced President Luis Abinader on Sunday.
The transformation of the National Police will include the evaluation of each of its members, improving the quality of life of the agents and the acquisition of equipment to supervise their work in the streets, said the head of state in a press conference at the Executive headquarters.
The President spoke about the results of the commission he appointed several months ago to recommend corrective measures to be applied in the Police.
The evaluation of “each one” of the nearly 40,000 members of the Police will be in charge of a “recognized” international firm, whose functions will be supervised by the United Nations and the Colombian and Spanish Police.
This process will be implemented in a maximum of 18 months, added the President, who announced that the Director of the Spanish National Police, Francisco Pardo Piqueras, will visit the country on November 25.
Colombia and Spain will also advise the Dominican Republic on the restructuring of the Police Education Institute, which will extend from six months to one year its training period for aspiring police officers.
“On Monday, October 25, we will promulgate the regulation of the Organic Law of the National Police which for unknown reasons has been delayed for 5 years in being applied,” said the head of state, as he revealed that there are policemen on the streets with “barely two months” of training.
Among the measures to be taken is to audit the Police.
Work will also be done to reduce the high number of high ranking officers that the police force has without any function, as well as the “distortion” in the salaries of the institution.
“We are facing a difficult, hard work, which is to change a structure that for decades served in some chaos for other purposes, but as I have said before I neither get tired nor tired (…) trust in the work of this commission and the Government and to the citizens who also make their complaints,” said Abinader.
Before his words, Abinader dismissed the director general of the National Police.
Several citizens have been shot dead by police officers in the last few months, among them a religious couple shot in a checkpoint and an architect chased by a non-commissioned officer until she was shot in the head.
