Former Governor of the Central Bank, DR ambassador in Washington and editor of El Caribe newspaper, Bernardo Vega in a contribution to the op-ed section of El Caribe on Monday commented that Dominicans should become more aware of how much of the Gross Domestic Product is used to sustain vagabond politicians, political parties, their members, the legislators and their cushy jobs, and an oversized Central Electoral Board (JCE). He observed that to come up with the total, the figures should include:
Money allotted in the national budget for the financing of political election campaigns; money for politicians’ non-governmental organizations that are not subject to any accountability and are known to carry out minimal social work; the millions that now by law would have to be delivered to the JCE so that the politicians can organize the primaries of their parties; the increasing funding of new provinces and municipalities to provide more jobs to bureaucrats; the donations and contributions that the private sector makes to politicians, during, before and after an election; the bribes to legislators; the cost to taxpayers of the 34,989 votes cast abroad in the 2004 presidential election; the US$62 million cost of implementing electronic voting at a time when there is an agreement with the IMF that sets a ceiling to new indebtedness. He also asks why Dominicans have to contribute RD$0.40 of every peso in taxes so that the government can pay off a foreign debt primarily owed to private American and Spanish banks, funds that were used primarily during the past administration for overvalued, non priority programs such as the Plan Renove, among many others. And finally, he points out that at the end of the last Balaguer administration, there were 282,000 public employees, including civilians and military, and now there are 400,000 and asks why do taxpayers have to pay for the additional 118,000 bureaucrats that have increased by 42% in only eight years the government payroll.
Vega comments that if all the above could be reduced, then there would be enough money to improve education and health of the people and better prepare the country for globalization. In his opinion for some 36 years, Dominicans carried the dead weight of the losses of governmental sugar mills, the state-owned power company, and other companies inherited by Dictator Trujillo.
In his opinion, politicians today are the new dead weight that Dominican taxpayers have to bear.