By May, the Ministry of Education had executed 28% of its budget, which suggests that by year’s end they will only have used 3% of GDP. The Coalition for Dignified Education complained yesterday, Sunday 23 June that at the current pace of budgetary execution, the Ministry of Education (Minerd) could not spend the 4% of GDP that the Dominican people worked so hard to obtain. The Medina administration raised taxes significantly in December 2012 on the grounds that the funds would enable the government to comply with the law that stipulates that 4% of GDP should be allocated to Education.
According to El Caribe’s version of the story, the Coalition says that “the government is not fulfilling the quarterly quotas of commitments in the sector, since Minerd is paying less than originally planned, as was verified in the first quarter of the year when they did not spend RD$3.848 billion.”
The Coalition says that of the RD$99.6 billion that the Ministry has assigned, in the first five months it has executed just RD$27.8 billion and stands out as the Ministry that has done the least amount of budgetary spending.
They point out that primary and secondary education were the sectors of the Ministry’s budget that received the most money, 46% of their budget. On the other hand, this Coalition, which acts as a watchdog on the Ministry’s budgetary execution, says that only 11% of the budget set aside for construction, expansion and repairs has been used.