While Hip?lito Mej?a?s rhetoric has traditionally focused on the poor, the President expressed his concern last week for the welfare of the middle classes. Recent economic conditions, such as the increasing cost of fuel, devaluation of the peso, high bank rates, and rising power bills, have been steadily eroding the buying power of the middle class.
The President announced a hold on the increase of 20 to 14 percent to electric rates that was approved for 1 March, and commented on how such price hikes mainly penalized the middle class. He postponed its application for Tuesday, 4 March.
Businessman Jose Antonio Najri, spoke in an interview for El Caribe and also focused on the middle class. As well as being the former senator of Santo Domingo, Najri?s family owns the Toyota dealership with a 22-percent share of all vehicle sales in the Dominican Republic. Najri recommends that the government sign a monitoring agreement with the International Monetary Fund in order to discipline government spending. ?Here, nobody wants to talk about it, but we are going to have to sign agreements to renegotiate the foreign debt,? he said.
?We must lower the interest rates that are destroying the middle class, which is the guarantee of an economic takeoff,? he said. Najri referred to the government as the ?lazy bee? (zangano) of the hive. ?What it does is spend, and many times misspend,? he said in his criticism of the administration.
?The middle class sustains the productive apparatus and the wheels of commerce. But the interest rates hurt the home?s budget, appliance sales, vehicle payments, and all that directly affects the middle class.?