Speaking on the Hoy Mismo TV program yesterday, Tuesday 19 August 2014, the director general of the National Budget, Luis Reyes Santos, said that the most important issue for the Fiscal Pact discussions is quality of government spending. He said that the discussions leading to the Fiscal Pact are appropriate for topics such as the government debt.
“And we are going to have to discuss matters linked to spending, because if we are to give legitimacy to any reform, there cannot be talk of fiscal reform without an effort to improve quality of public spending,” he said.
He said there would not be another fiscal reform during the present administration. What has been contemplated is the Fiscal Pact. He said the country’s objectives needed to be defined in terms of spending and improving the quality of life of the population in that context. The discussions need to consider how this would be financed.
He said the government was working on the National Budget for 2015, and was currently making the final revisions.
He said that the accumulated government deficit for January-June was 0.55% of the GDP, which is around RD$13-14 billion. The target is to end the year with a 2.8% of GDP billion deficit.
Reyes Santos said that the government is convinced that it has to send the country signals of fiscal discipline so that they can have the legitimacy for the next administration be able to tackle these matters.
http://presidencia.gob.do/noticias/director-de-presupuesto-dice-calidad-del-gasto-es-prioridad-para-pacto-fiscal