In what must be regarded as a preface to his proposed tax package and fiscal reforms, President Hipolito Mejia went on TV and radio last night to excoriate the administration of President Leonel Fernandez for ?inherited evils.? Mejia said that the previous government left unpaid bills of DR$7.246 billion, and a public debt amounting to more than DR$25 billion. No mention was made during the 35-minute speech of the fiscal remedies that Mejia will offer. Most of the time was devoted to a detailed listing of the pending financial obligations of various ministries, authorities, and programs. Mejia also said that government operations were financed during the first eight months of this year by ?inorganic funds? [i.e., pesos placed in circulation without hard currency support]. Some DR$6.377 billion of high interest paying bonds (participation certificates) were sold to private lenders by the Central Bank, he said. The President told the nation that an auditing of full extent of the internal debts ?has yet to be completed,? but his gloomy litany included DR$1.771 billion owed by the Dominican Electricity Corporation to energy producers and distributors; DR$1.08 billion owed the Reserve Bank by the Dominican Corporation for State Enterprises, the State Sugar Council, and the Price Stabilization Institute; the State-owned Rosario Mining Corporation has a debt of DR$2.395 billion; the Agricultural Bank has debts of DR$559 million; the state-owned flour mill, Molinos Dominicanos owes DR$246 million; DR$582 million is owed to private contractors for incomplete public works projects. Mejia also mentioned an ?undocumented debt? of DR$708 million that comes due this year. Not all of the country?s present difficulties were attributed to PLD government. Mejia mentioned two significant external factors: (1) the impact on the local economy of the increase in petroleum prices in world markets, and (2) the loss of tourism-derived income due to the Euro?s decline in value against the dollar. In the second half of his remarks, Mejia began to list the ?social debts? that his government wants to correct as its first priority. The nation has, he said, 130,000 homes with ?dirt floors.? Another 300,000 have walls of palm fronds. Close to 100,000 have roofs of woven cane. Almost 300,000 homes have no potable water, a quarter of a million have no electricity, and ?if that were not enough, in the twenty-first century, 970,000 homes have no indoor plumbing.? Mejia spoke of the urgent need for better schools, more housing, improved hospitals, repaired and paved streets, and a strengthened program of social services. His government will end ?wasteful? programs, eliminate ?inorganic? currency emissions, punish ?the cancer of corruption,? reduce expenditures for ministerial salaries and operations, and will husband the public purse with ?extreme care and prudence, with frugality and, if you please, miserliness.? Having thus set the stage, Mejia is expected to go before the public again tonight to present what the press has termed his ?maxi-package? (paquetazo) of new taxes and fiscal reforms.
