Government ignores 2007 Austerity Law

[NewsWhore]

In January 2007, Law 496-06 on Austerity in the Public Sector, which sought to curtail superfluous spending in government, went into effect. The law was passed concurrently with the passing of the 2006 Fiscal Reform that considerably increased taxes and government revenues. But, while the government did benefit from a windfall in additional income, official figures show that the austerity law did little to restrain unnecessary spending, as reported in Diario Libre. A report released by the Chamber of Accounts, the government body in charge of auditing government departments, indicates that government employees were paid RD$45.75 billion, when the National Budget had authorized RD$42.99 billion. Wages for government employees were up 6.4% in 2007, or RD$2.8 billion more. And the chapter for per diem and representation expenses was up a considerable 24.2%, going from the authorized RD$489.3 million to RD$607.9 million, or RD$118.6 million more. Propaganda spending was up a whopping 98.1%, or RD$1.05 billion more than what was authorized. The government is a monopoly in most of the services it advertises, which makes spending in this chapter highly questionable. Article 12 of the Austerity Law had ordered a 25% reduction over what was spent on advertising in 2005. The government also spent RD$808.5 million on the chapter for Communication Services, or RD$808.5 million. This was in line with what had been authorized.

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