Civil society group Citizen Participation (PC) says that the arguments given by former President Leonel Fernandez in his Tuesday, 13 November speech on the deficit support the belief that he violated the Constitution and the law when generating the largest fiscal deficit in the country’s history since records began. In a statement, PC says that the reduction in government revenue that Fernandez mentions as one of the causes of the deficit should have led him to reduce spending and not increase it, as he did, violating Art. 44 of the Budget Law that says: Allocations approved by Congress are the maximum limit of spending, subject to the real availability of the estimated revenue.”
PC says that one of the leading reasons for the deficit was already acknowledged by Economy, Planning and Development Minister Temistocles Montas when he declared that public spending expanded more than 2% of the GDP because President Fernandez was determined to finish his public infrastructure projects, which required more than RD$50-60 million.
PC says that before Congress approved the Complementary Budget Law on 13 July this year, the government, on the instructions of Fernandez, as stated by Montas, had already widely expanded the deficit that had been authorized in the National Budget.
PC expressed disappointment at what they describe as the Attorney General’s failure to fulfill his duty to carry out an in-depth investigation into the causes of the deficit and that his reasons for rejecting the corruption suit filed by the Alianza Pais party led by former district attorney Guillermo Moreno, included, by the AG’s own admission, his personal feelings towards the former President, which were precisely what stopped him from considering and deciding on the request. PC said that the AG’s rejection of the request to investigate did not refer to the overspending by other public officials, namely Felix Bautista and former Minister of Public Works Victor Diaz Rua.
www.hoy.com.do/el-pais/2012/11/15/454822/PC-insiste-se-violo-la-Constitucion-con-deficit-fiscal