The government is now spending more money to pay its debt than on government wages, according to a report in Diario Libre. The report says that until January of 2017 the government had been spending the same amount on government wages than on the domestic and foreign debt, or around RD$12 billion. But the situation has now changed. The report alerts that as of January 2018, the servicing of the non-financial public sector debt for the first time has surpassed wage level spending. This is even with the government cutting public spending in January by 3.7%.
The Budget Agency (Digepres) data indicates the government spent RD$12.69 billion on public sector wages, while disbursing RD$14.26 billion for debt payments on principal and interest in January 2018.
The report in Diario Libre highlights that the government spends most of the budget on wages and servicing the government debt. The servicing of the debt and wages account for 45.6% of government spending of RD$59.11 billion for January 2018.
Government spending is estimated to be RD$816.56 billion, according to the 2018 National Budget. That is 14.8% more than the 2017 National Budget that was RD$711.39 billion.
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Diario Libre
26 February 2018
