Journalist Claudio Cabrera looks at the major problems facing the transition team of the next government in an article in Hoy today. As the PLD government-to-be receives the scraps and rubble left over from the crisis, none of the proposed solutions has achieved a balance. Cabrera identifies the quasi-fiscal deficit (primarily the RD$100 billion in Central Bank savings certificates – many making up to 60% annual interest), the energy crisis, the foreign debt, the tax reform and social security as the major sticking points the new government will have to face. He points out that the rescue of the banks (Baninter, Banco Mercantil and Bancredito) cost the government more than RD$80 billion, and the government has to pay RD$30 billion to cover the interest payments. With regards to the energy crisis, Cabrera cites the Finance Minister Rafael Calderon, who stated last week that the government is owed money, and who blamed mismanagement by the generators for their current mess. The enormous foreign debt is a major worry for the incoming government. Referring to a paper by economist Miguel Ceara Hatton, Cabrera says that Central Bank miscues were the cause of the peso?s devaluation and that the new government will have to renegotiate its foreign debt to stay afloat. Regarding the tax reform proposals that have been imposed by the IMF Stand By Accord of last August, the reporter says that economist Isidoro Santana pointed out a major stumbling block: While the private sector is waiting for a consensus-based tax package, Santana saw the costs of the new fiscal requisitions reach RD$65 billion, and this was just to cover Central Bank interest payments (RD$30 billion), compensation for provisional taxes due to disappear (RD$20 billion) and another RD$15 billion to neutralize the effects of the US-DR Free Trade Agreement on customs receipts. This agreement is not expected to go into effect until 2005. The social security process may not get off to a good start because the necessary government subsidies to the poorest workers were unavailable due to the economic crisis.