Writing in Hoy newspaper today, Friday 30 November, economist Miguel Ceara-Hatton defends the young campaigners who are calling for an end to government impunity. The Medina government has just passed a major taxation increase in order to cover for a RD$200 billion fiscal deficit, which many are also describing as a fiscal fraud.
In his commentary Ceara-Hatton says that the government has defended its spending spree in 2012 on the grounds that otherwise joblessness and growth in GDP would have had a poor performance. He says that a fiscal deficit is not bad or good per se, and public spending can stimulate development and under certain conditions it is positive as it can expand aggregate demand. He says that it depends how the money is spent. In the case of the Dominican Republic he said the spending could have gone towards education, health services and public services to improve the population’s quality of life.
“Unfortunately that is not the case. The problem is that the deficit and public spending went on financing wasteful spending, on the members of the political corporation, political patronage, dilapidation and misuse of funds and corruption and above all violating citizens rights, laws and the Constitution,” he writes. He adds that there are clear indications of overvaluations and extortion in the illegal commissions that should be investigated, that there are signs that the enormous fiscal deficit is an immense fiscal fraud.”
He adds: “Worse still, citizens are defenseless in the face of the situation. Justice is in the hands of the political corporation. The prosecutors, courts and the high courts refuse to administer justice, to investigate crime and receive complaints from citizens if they touch upon members of the political corporation. They owe their posts to them. Simply the Dominican democracy and rule of the law are corrupted or there is little left of it.”
Ceara-Hatton says that in response to this situation the President’s message calls on citizens to forget the past. He says that the President is confusing the citizens’ calls with revenge when he calls for transforming stones into bricks to build the future.
“No, Mr. President, there are no rocks here, but a firm will of a people that is calling for a rights-based society. There is the will to end impunity, to do away with the policy of erasing the past. Justice is being demanded. Citizens are only protected by laws, but given the illegalities, their arbitrary nature and the abuses, their last resort is to firmly protest in the streets, without violence. Only that way there will be a different future.”
www.hoy.com.do/opiniones/2012/11/29/456838/Contundencia-sin-violencia
http://presidencia.gob.do/detalle-discurso.php?id=769