The Chamber of Deputies sent the new tax reform package yesterday to a special committee with instructions to report its findings the next day. The eleven-person committee includes members of the opposition. Ramon Cabrera, the committee chair said that it is possible that his group would not change the legislation, since the Senate had debated the issues quite enough. If the Chamber of Deputies makes changes, the bill would have to return to the Senate for approval. Several Reformist (PRSC) party members requested that their names be excluded from the ad-hoc committee. PRSC deputy Ramon Rogelio Genao distributed black handkerchiefs to members of the chamber as a protest against the new tax proposals. He said, "black is the color of sorrow, and this symbolizes the sorrow that Dominicans will experience if the cost of living goes up..."
The tax bill has met with widespread opposition primarily from business sectors, this time, that argue that the needed funds can be obtained if the government cuts its own superfluous spending.
Technical Minister of the Presidency Temistocles Montas announced the Executive Branch would submit the RD$254 billion proposed budget to the legislature today. The government is pressuring for an approval of the budget this year.
The Dominican Senate has passed a bill that will limit salaries, reduce perks for officials and limit the size of automobiles as well as put a freeze on hiring. These cuts, nevertheless, would be deemed unnecessary if as expected, government revenues increase. Meanwhile, the bill establishes that official vehicles, with license plates beginning with O, cannot be used on weekends and holidays, unless the person assigned the vehicle is on official business. Most government-financed vehicles do not begin with O. It was noteworthy that the senators did not go all out with the President's proposals, and they eliminated one of the suggested measures in a very self-serving manner. The President had requested that the two-vehicle unrestricted duty-free import clause that benefits legislators be reduced to just one vehicle, but the senators removed that clause. According to Diario Libre, many salaries will be reduced by 10% or 15%.
President Leonel Fernandez has appointed Dr. Fernando Caamano as new Superintendent of Health and Dr. Ana Ilse Mena as new general manager of the Consejo Nacional de Securidad Social (CNSS), the social security council. The new officers replace Dr. Bernardo Defillo and Arismendi Diaz Santana, respectively.
At the same time, the National Council of Social Security (CNSS) confirmed Persia Alvarez in her present post as Superintendent of Pensions for another four years.
The creation of a new Ministry of the Treasury (Secretaria de Hacienda) was approved in Thursday, 21 December's congressional session and is only pending passage by the Executive Branch. The new ministry will merge the departments of Customs, Taxes, Budget and the Ministry of Finance in one entity. The new ministry is a requirement of the International Monetary Fund, with which the DR has a Stand-by agreement in effect. The goal is to make the management of public resources more transparent. The new Ministry of the Treasury is due to begin operations in January 2007.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved the disbursement of US$40 million as part of the US$100 million program called "Consolidation of Financial Reforms". The money will be used to pay for fuel imports and foreign debts. A recent US$50 million disbursement was used to pay the electricity subsidy. Central Bank officials told Hoy reporters that the influx of the US$40 million would remove some of the pressure on the exchange market. Recently, the dollar has crept up nearly RD$0.75 against the peso.
The Executive Branch sent a bill to Congress on Thursday, 21 December aimed at transferring RD$6.6 billion from this year's budget. The transfers will reduce the Education budget by $854 million, Public Health by RD$706.9 million, the Presidency by RD$2.3 billion, Finance by RD$1.37 billion and Agriculture by RD$150 million. Of these funds, the Presidency will receive RD$3.73 billion to transfer RD$1.1 billion for the construction of the Santo Domingo metro, RD$1.89 billion to the Office for the Supervision of Public Works and RD$720 million for social protection. The bill also allocates RD$2.6 billion to the Ministry of Public Works, RD$85.6 million to the Ministry of Foreign Relations, RD$50 to the Ministry of Finance, and RD$46 million to Interior and Police, RD$12.6 million to Armed Forces, RD$15 million to Public Health and RD$17.1 million to Agriculture.
The bill authorizes the transfer of RD$5.09 billion of the surplus of revenues produced with the implementation of the Petrocaribe agreement to be used in the subsidy of the electricity sector.
The bill would be reviewed by the Chamber of Deputies that is made up by a majority of ruling party PLD deputies.
Diario Libre comments that the transfer is an age-old government practice. The newspaper speculates that the transfer is certain to have funded the RD$700 million the government spent on distributing Christmas dinner food boxes. In an editorial commentary, the newspaper says that the transfer is financing the cost of the congressional election in May and picking up part of the cost of the election to come. "It is an old budget trick of Dr. Balaguer: Assign millions to ministries that provide the government with a good image, and then transfer the funds away at the end of the year. Nothing has changed."
The Dominican Republic is the only country in Latin America that spends less than 2% of its Gross Domestic Product on education, according to the recently released UNESCO 2007 Education For All Global Monitoring Report. The DR's public investment in education is 1.2%. Uruguay and El Salvador are also at the bottom of the list with 2.3 and 2.9%.
In an editorial, Hoy questions the irony that the government invests so little in education while it preaches about turning the DR into a society of knowledge and reducing the digital gap.
Hoy also points out that another study recently found that the quality of education in the DR is low, primarily due to the few hours of classes and level of education programs in public schools. "That is, add to the low investment the bad quality of teaching and few hours of instruction," points out the newspaper.
See http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php...
The decrees that limit the sales hours of alcoholic beverages in most of the Dominican Republic issued last July were relaxed by decree for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. The decree also prohibits heavy goods vehicles from using the nation's roadways. According to Interior and Police Minister Franklin Almeyda, anti-crime efforts over the holidays will be stepped up and these measures include foot patrols along many streets in the major cities. Regarding the sale of liquor, the minister said that the stricter measures would be back in place as from 2 January.
The new head of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), Julio Cesar Castanos Guzman, has told reporters from Listin Diario that the country was "plagued" by people using false identification papers. In general, the practice is to substitute one person for another. Castanos said that international criminals and drug traffickers have managed to obtain documents through civil registry offices and then gone on to obtain their personal identification cards (cedulas) and even passports. The JCE's chief magistrate asked the Attorney General's office to apply Law 659 that requires local prosecutors offices to supervise the books of the civil registry offices at least twice a year.
The Dominican Republic has a US$690 million trade deficit in spite of increasing its exports. The deficit has increased continually since 1970. In 2005 the Dominican Republic exported US$1.08 billion in traditional, non-traditional and mining exports. If only these exports were calculated, the trade deficit would be US$5.425 billion. However, the industrial free zones exported over US$4.4 billion, thus reducing the deficit, according to the Dominican Center for Exports and Investment (CEI). According to Manuel Gonzalez Tejera, free zone exports account for 81% of all Dominican exports.
In an interview with Hoy, Fernando Capellan, president of the largest Dominican free zone conglomerate, Grupo M, highlights the fact that the main obstacles to the wellbeing of Dominican apparel companies come from within. He says that the Chinese effect on Dominican exports is already past us, and that any competitiveness problems are internal. He mentions an overvalued peso, lack of vision from the authorities, and a government that does not believe in the sector. He says that the solutions to simple problems, such as the remodeling of the Puerto Plata and Manzanillo ports so that exporters do not have to ship to Santo Domingo, are still far away. He also said that delays in implementing DR-CAFTA have impeded them from using the Short Supply List, which would allow them to import material from third countries, such as Mexican material that is more competitive than material from the US. He said that the labor liabilities are a major problem.
Fernando Capellan said that Grupo M employs 11,429 employees, including 1,200 in their plant in Haiti. Capellan feels that the recently passed Hope Act will be beneficial for the DR and Haiti.
He mentioned that DR now provides full service from apparel design to packaging for clients such as Gap, Liz Claiborne, Old Navy, Donna Karan New York (DKNY), Levi's, Wal-Mart, Dillard's, Dockers, Carhartt, Hanes, Abercrombie & Fitch, Eddie Bauer, Calvin Klein, Gildan, Perry Ellis International, American Eagle Outfitters, Ralph Lauren and VF Corporation.
A total of 17 people perished over the Christmas weekend. There were 14 deaths and 396 injuries as a result of traffic-related accidents, and of these, 175 were motorcycle victims, and 62 in other motorized transport. Logically, most of the victims were in Santo Domingo and Santiago. There was one fatality from a fireworks accident, and five others were treated for burns in similar accidents. Two people died of alcohol intoxication, and 84 were treated for alcohol-related problems. The National Emergency Center (COE) has 35,000 volunteers working along the nation's highways as part of the safety program designed to lower the holiday death toll.
The director of the Dario Contreras Trauma Hospital, Dr. Victor Quezada recommended that the government reinstate the midnight and 2 am weekend and holiday alcohol vending times. He commented that most of the cases of deaths occurred after these hours and those driving were doing so under the effects of alcohol, as reported in the Listin Diario.
When Margarita Maria Lorenzo Urena shot and killed her husband, Lt. Colonel Hector Salvador Duran Polanco and emasculated him, placing the severed parts in his mouth, she may well have been motivated by incest committed by the victim. According to Diario Libre, the woman declared under interrogation that Duran had sex with her daughter and that both were infected with HIV as a result. Psychiatrist Cesar Mella said that when such a premeditated and treacherous murder occurs, it is usually the result of an abusive relationship.
Three more people have been arrested in relation to the jewelry store robbery at Joyeria George in the Piantini area of Santo Domingo. The arrested men were named as Julio Cesar Diaz, Juan Manuel Diaz and Cesar Michel Diaz, and the police requested that the prisoners be remanded for trial. Assistant prosecutor Danny Silvestre asked the instructional magistrate for preventive custody since the three are implicated in the purchase and acquisition of the stolen jewelry as well as taking part in the planning of the robbery itself.
The regular series ended on Friday night with the Gigantes del Cibao, the Aguilas Cibaenas and the Tigres del Licey all tied in first place. The Azucareros managed to tie the Estrellas Orientales for the fourth play-off spot and had to play a special tie-breaker on Saturday night.
On Friday, Escogido, already eliminated, beat the Aguilas, 4-0, but this was their last effort until next October. The Estrellas beat the Gigantes 9-7 in San Francisco de Macoris and Licey beat the Azucareros.
The final regular series standings were the following:
Standings
| Team | W-L | Avg. | Games Behind |
| Aguilas | 31 - 19 | .620 | -- |
| Gigantes | 31 - 19 | .620 | -- |
| Licey | 31 - 19 | .620 | -- |
| Azucareros | 20 - 30 | .400 | 11.0 |
| Estrellas | 20 - 30 | .400 | 11.0 |
| Escogido | 16 - 34 | .320 | 15.0 |
On Saturday night, the Azucareros from La Romana defeated the Estrellas Orientales 4-2 in the Francisco Micheli Stadium in La Romana and won the final play-off spot.
Once the final four were defined, the play-off teams raffled off the imported players from the two eliminated teams, the Estrellas and the Leones del Escogido. Estrellas catcher Chad Moeller was taken by the Azucareros, while the Aguilas took pitcher Pete Munro from the Leones del Escogido. Lenin Picota and Matt Beech were taken by the Tigres del Licey and the Gigantes del Cibao.
The first games:
After the Christmas recess, the Round Robin Series began. This series will determine the final two teams that will play off for the championship.
In Santiago, Jose Lima turned in his best effort of the year, pitching 6.2 innings of great baseball and the Aguilas went on to defeat the Tigres del Licey 8-3. The action started in the second inning, when Mendy Lopez and Edwin Encarnacion hit back-to-back doubles, followed by Alberto Castillo getting hit by a pitch and Luis Polonia batting another clutch hit to drive in two more runs. One more run in the third inning was all Lima needed as he spaced out five hits, and struck out nine opposing batters.
In San Francisco de Macoris, the Gigantes del Cibao took care of the Azucareros by the same score, 8-3. Erick Almonte, just voted the MVP of the Regular Series, took care of business in a spectacular fashion, accounting for six runs batted in as the Gigantes coasted to victory.
Tonight's games
* Santo Domingo: Estadio Quisqueya 7:30pm
Gigantes vs. Tigres del Licey
* La Romana: Estadio Francisco Micheli 7:30pm
Aguilas vs. Azucareros
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