Writing in acento.com.do and Hoy on Sunday 7 April, journalist Juan Bolivar Diaz describes how government programs begun under the markedly clientelist Leonel Fernandez government have reached more than two million households in the Dominican Republic. Around seven million people receive RD$40 billion in social welfare in seven highly promoted welfare programs. Diaz describes six of the programs (Progressing with Solidarity, Food comes First, School bonus, higher school bonus, Bonogas Households, Electricity Bonus and Preventive Police Incentive) as “distributing crumbs.” Only a seventh program, Bonogas for unionized public transport drivers distributes a significant sum, RD$3,384 a month to the public transporters, and reaches 15,921 beneficiaries, enough for the drivers to purchase two gallons of fuel for the day’s journey.
He comments that the most emblematic program, Comer es Primero, Food comes First involves the distribution on average of RD$683 a month, enough to buy a pound of rice a day. “Nobody can dare think that this helps a family fight poverty, because it is a few crumbs to keep the destitute from dying,” he writes.
He says the household gas program only buys two gallons of propane a month, which barely lasts two weeks.
He writes that most ridiculous of all is the incentive of R$288 a month aimed at encouraging parents to send their children to public school, when it is not enough to buy one plantain per day. Nonetheless, 211,778 people receive this payment.
Diaz mentions that the Progresando con Solidaridad program, implemented under former First Lady Margarita Cedeno, who is now the nation’s Vice President is being evaluated by President Danilo Medina’s cabinet.
“The welfare payment distributions are known for being rife with political clientelism.” The civil society campaign group Participacion Ciudadana found that in the most recent electoral campaigns political activists used the listings of the beneficiaries of the subsidies to try to influence voters. He concludes: “The more than RD$40 billion allocated to those programs could have been used to build the classrooms that are needed and to improve hospital services, but would have had less political effect.”
http://www.acento.com.do/index.php/news/66374/56/Analisis-de-Juan-Bolivar-Diaz-40-mil-millones-para-mantener-la-pobreza.html