During a trip to inaugurate government housing and a hospital, President Hipolito Mejia called the incoming PLD party a ?bunch of mediocre and irresponsible people,? adding that ?they won?t do anything? for the country. Shortly after, as reported in Hoy, the President told the press that he had ordered a disbursement of RD$1.2 billion to purchase fuels for the electric companies, to assist hospitals and to assure the supply of propane to consumers. Mejia said that the government would directly purchase RD$800 million worth of fuel in order to reduce the ?hated blackouts.? The President said he had allocated RD$400 million to purchase propane. Distributors had said yesterday that the propane scarcity was due to the government?s non-payment of the subsidy, which has been estimated to be as much as RD$35 per gallon of the fuel. Referring to the situation of the many hospitals that lack diesel for their emergency generators, Mejia said that from as of this past Wednesday, ?the government had assumed the purchase and distribution of fuels for the hospitals run by the state.? Mejia was careful to point out that the new money was above and beyond the subsidy that the government pays the distributors and generators to provide electricity to the poorest neighborhoods, and the electric bills that the government itself runs up.