More than RD$11 billion of government funds have been made available mainly to small scale producers during the surprise weekend visits that have become a hallmark of Danilo Medina’s presidency. The Administrative Minister of the Presidency, Jose Ramon Peralta disclosed this detail yesterday, Thursday 3 July 2014 whilst signing an agreement with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in which the Dominican government and the international organization pledged to provide rigorous and systematic follow up to the President’s visits.
Peralta said that the President has made 70 surprise visits to 31 provinces since he took office, making 451 commitments, 251 of which were linked to farming, and 200 to community development.
He said that the UNDP would be conducting a study to follow up on the visits to ascertain the real impact ‘of each and every project’. Presidency Minister Gustavo Montalvo said that this evaluation meant that each of the projects would be thoroughly checked and a detailed analysis would be given to the government.
Montalvo added that they had identified 50 projects for assessment that have been underway for long enough. The Presidency Minister revealed that as part of the process, “a questionnaire will be handed out to the beneficiaries of the initiatives and also to those who have not benefitted. This will enable us to obtain information about their living conditions and the changes which have taken place”.
The agreement was signed by the resident coordinator of the United Nations in the country, Lorenzo Jimenez de Luis, who said that the results of the study would be available in March 2015.
The Administrative Minister responded to the order by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) that the country needed to change its economic model due to unemployment, which is seriously affecting a large percentage of young people in the country.
“This work we are doing will help us to overcome deficiencies such as unemployment. This government is focused on job creation, by going to the sectors with the greatest needs in the country. We are focused on that,” said Peralta after signing the agreement with the UNDP at the Presidential Palace.
Nevertheless, he asked for time to achieve the objectives: “This will not happen overnight. It is a process”.
Read more in Spanish:
http://presidencia.gob.do/comunicados/gobierno-y-pnud-firman-acuerdo-para-evaluar-impacto-de-las-visitas-sorpresa
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2014/07/04/i685061_gobierno-invirti-rd11-mil-millones-visitas-sorpresas.html