Government subsidies to four state entities, the Corporación Dominicana de Empresas Estatales (CORDE), Consejo Estatal del Azucar (CEA) and the Corporación Dominicana de Electricidad (CDE), and the smaller Corporación de Hoteles Estatales cost tax payers RD$5,000 million in 1998, or 13% of the total national budget. Eduardo Selman, director of CORDE, says that if the government is able to reduce these subsidies by privatizing these entities, the savings could be invested in health and education services. Governments use the state enterprises primarily as political awards to party militants. Most jobs are known as "botellas", or jobs where people are paid salaries for doing little or nothing. It is estimated 40,000 persons could lose their jobs. The government has announced it has allotted RD$900 million to make severance payments to the employees that would be fired.
