The spokesperson for the Economic and Social Council (CES), Rafael Toribio (the former rector of Intec university), announced on Saturday, 12 February 2022 that this week three more working groups would begin to discuss key national issues. President Luis Abinader has convened the CES for the Dialogue for Reforms. Each of the discussion tables includes people from government, labor sector and the private sector, and representatives of political parties and the legislature.
The new working tables are:
Monday, 14 February: Migration and Foreign Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
Wednesday, 16 February: Citizen Safety and Police at the Iberoamerican University.
Thursday, 15 February: Health at the APEC University.
The three new discussion groups join others that have already been meeting, such as Constitutional Reform, Water, Elections, Reform and Modernization of the Public Administration, Institutional Transparency, Transportation and Social Security.
Last week, 17 civic society organizations requested that the Economic and Social Council resume the discussions regarding the Education Pact. The organizations say that the pandemic cannot be blamed for the major problems affecting the sector, including the delay in distribution of textbooks, the failure of the teacher hiring contest, the obstacles to entering the public teacher career, the positions of the Public School Teachers Association (ADP), and the low level of learning of the students.
A key facet of these working groups is that any Dominican citizen can participate and voice an opinion during the two months following the opening of each group. There is a website, dialogoreformas.do that is open for comments.
The conclusions of the working tables are mere recommendations that can or may not be taken into consideration by government officials, including the legislators and the high courts when acting on the different topics.
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Diario Libre
Diario Libre
14 February 2022