Government technicians and lawmakers met yesterday in an attempt to reach a consensus regarding the National Budget bill but were unable to agree upon the application of the exchange rate commission that the government wants to maintain until 1 July 2006. Lawmakers claim that this cannot be justified after the approval of the tax reform, as reported by Diario Libre. The discussion lasted for over four hours and the central theme was the exchange commission, leaving no time to discuss other contentious issues such as the RD$1.835 billion for the Santo Domingo metro project and the exclusion of 961 non-governmental organizations that are sponsored by lawmakers.
El Caribe reports that the Director of the National Budget Office, Guarocuya Felix stated that the exchange commission is non negotiable, and that lawmakers are aware of this. He added that it will be necessary to keep it during the first semester of the year, in order to comply with the zero-deficit budget agreed with the IMF.
While the present congressional legislature closes on Thursday, 12 January, the Executive Branch can convene Congress to an extraordinary session. If it does not convene the session, congress will break until 27 February.
The Executive Branch sent the budget to Congress for review on 22 December.
Dominican law establishes that if a new budget is not approved, the government runs on the old budget.