Former Minister of Economy Juan Ariel Jiménez says the Abinader government is taking on a level of indebtedness never seen in Dominican history.
He warned of public-private trusts taking on debt that will have to be paid by taxpayers. He warned that it is dangerous for the government to take on debt through the public-private trusts instead of as established by law through public credit. Debt taken on by the public private trusts does not need to go through Congress and is not registered as public debt in government statistics.
“An example, RD Vial, has taken on RD$25 billion in over the past eight years of the last government,” he said. He warned that during the first two years of the Abinader administration an additional RD$25 billion has been added.
He criticized that the past government had increased the consolidated public sector debt by RD$23 billion in eight years and this government has added RD$21 billion in just two years, according to data from the Ministry of Hacienda and the Central Bank.
He criticized a large chunk of current expenses are going to pay for government employee wages, propaganda and high-level pensions.
“The advertising of the presidency in the PLD at least in the 8 years of the past government, was in annual average of 103.8 million pesos, this government has it at more than 2 billion pesos a year,” he said.
When he pointed out that these debts were used to pay bonds and subsidies, he said that of the increase of about 21 billion dollars, only 2,500 million dollars were used for health and social subsidies during Covid, so this does not explain the added 21 billion dollars. “One thing is to talk, but I see the numbers,” he said.
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Noticias SIN
23 February 2023