An urgent vote after two readings yesterday, Tuesday 18 December and the Chamber of Deputies passed the legislative proposal containing next year’s General State Budget, with the modifications sent by the Executive Branch. The Senate had passed everything on Monday, 17 December for an overall amount of RD$530.9 billion. It is now law and will be sent to President Danilo Medina within a few hours for its enactment. The 2013 Budget was approved unanimously after a full debate in which 24 deputies took part, for over three hours, and there were 172 votes in favor in the first reading and 154 in favor in the second reading. Two modification proposals were rejected. They were presented by the at-large deputy, Hugo Tolentino Dipp, who suggested that the Public Defender should be given back the RD$50 million that was cut from its budget and allocated to the Chamber of Accounts. The other suggestion was to eliminate articles 25 and 27, which authorize the Executive Branch to carry out credit operations for loans and bonds.
The law that was approved includes a reduction by RD$50 million from the RD$100 million assigned to the Public Defender and assigns the money to the Chamber of Accounts. There is also a modification of article 25 that establishes that any emission of US$1 billion should be authorized by a law approved by the National Congress at a later date. The budget includes the 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Education for the sum of RD$99.6 billion, and a RD$3.3 billion increase in the funding of the Judicial Branch for a total of RD$4.5 billion. The Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) will get RD$7.1 billion, the Dominican Social Security Institute, RD$9.9 billion, the National Health Insurance (SeNaSa), RD$13.4 billion and the National Council for Social Security, RD$6.1 billion.