Dominican Republic’s ’empty bottles’ diplomats under scrutiny

By Ezra Fieser SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) – Diplomatic postings make for some of the cushiest jobs in many poor countries, but the Dominican Republic’s foreign service appears to have few rivals in the Americas when it comes to political cronyism and wasted taxpayers’ money. A count of diplomats provided by the government of the small Caribbean country lists 77 people on the payroll for its mission to the United Nations, 63 in New York and 14 in Switzerland. But the U.N. “Blue Book” of accredited personnel shows only 37. Governments regularly give diplomatic posts to political supporters, yet the number of accredited diplomats for the nation of 10 million people, to the U.N. in New York dwarfs other countries in the region.