The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), as the leading opposition party, has published a paid advertisement in the press highlighting the two sides of government policy. On one hand, it quotes Jose Lois Malkum, Governor of the Central Bank on 16 October, who, speaking before the Senate, said: “The government is compelled to revise the budget to conform to the recommendations of the IMF, which will imply increased sacrifice, more austerity and discipline of public spending for 2004.” Malkum admitted, as reported in Hoy newspaper, that “government spending has more than doubled.”
According to a report in Hoy newspaper commenting on the above statement, President Hipolito Mejia, said on Sunday, 19 October during his appearance on the “Una Vez por Semana” TV show: “I do not agree with that. Economists tend to believe the best way is to paralyze everything, but there are a thousand public works that have to be finished, and I will finish them – I cannot make any more sacrifices.”
On the TV broadcast and as reported in Hoy, President Mejia said that while over the past three years he has followed the recommendations of the monetary authorities, it is now time for them to tighten their belts.
The Political Committee of the PLD highlights that the contradictions between the head of state and the person responsible for the monetary policy of the country make evident the chaos and lack of coherence of public policies that are so necessary to confront the economic problems. “The country needs a coherent government that inspires confidence and pulls the country out of the crisis,” states the advertisement. “But this is not possible with a government in which the President of the Republic is pulling one way and the Governor of the Central Bank another.”