The Dominican government has paid RD$1.542 billion to the nation’s political parties over the last six years. This sum will increase markedly with the new Primary Law that obliges the governmental electoral board (JCE) to organize each party’s primary elections. At RD$257 million per year, the sum spent on political parties, which does not include private contributions, nears RD$1 million for every working day over the past six years. The Diario Libre points out that these funds are disbursed on a monthly basis during non-election years, and that during an electoral year the parties receive just one big check. Although the parties are required to present a report on how they spend the monies, there is no adequate system of auditing these statements. The Electoral Law of 1997 was supposed to reduce the dependence of political parties on lobbyists and industrial and financial institutions, but, so far, this has not been observed. Article 49 of the law says that the financing of the political parties will be half of 1% of the national income during election years and a quarter of 1% of the national income in non-election years. The payouts are governed by the proportion gained by each party during the most recent election. In 2004, the government distributed RD$412 million between the various political organizations.