The Ministry of Education, under outgoing Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch, has accumulated debts for over RD$600 million to the providers of the school breakfast program. This is in addition to RD$48 million owed to Verizon, the telephone company, which has cut its service to public schools. Thus, for several months now, the school breakfast program, which had been an incentive for poor mothers to send their children to school, has been suspended. Rafael Espinal of the Ministry of Education said that this week the ministry would make payments on arrears corresponding the months until February of this year. Several suppliers have for months now suspended dispatching school breakfast items, given the major arrears the government has maintained with them.