Former DR ambassador to the US and governor of the Central Bank Bernardo Vega criticized the fact that while Dominican congressmen have been quick to approve what he calls excessive and scandalous foreign loans, including for the first time loans with commercial banks for goods and services for the military, two top-priority bills have gone ignored: the new Immigration Bill and the Bill for Environmentally Protected Areas.
Vega urged that attention be given to the Immigration Bill, explaining that a commission of experts met for long hours to present its observations to Congress for study. He alerted that the presence of the low-cost Haitian labor makes a small group of owners of sugar mills and farms richer, but in general makes Dominicans poorer. Mass immigration and the presence of illegal Haitians pushes salaries downwards, and is an obstacle to the modernization of farms that would be effectuated if the cheap labor were not available. He also alerted that the country bears the high cost of the flux of indigent workers who demand social services, at an increased cost to Dominican taxpayers.
The second stagnant bill is that which would establish environmental areas for preservation from development. Vega explains that meanwhile, economic and political interests are lobbying to eliminate from the bill areas that should be protected.
Vega complains that the two bills are languishing because they do not have an agent in Congress to grease the hands of fellow congress delegates. ?In contrast, those [bills] that pass rapidly are those which favor individuals capable of pleasing the economic desires of our legislators,? he writes in El Caribe today.