[DR1] Andy blasts government proposal

[NewsWhore]

Economist Andy Dauhajre, one of the former administration's economic gurus, has published a column in the weekly newspaper Clave, titled "Lies, Inc." In the column, the advisor behind the sovereign bond issues and the buyback of Union Fenosa, says the President Leonel Fernandez' statement that the government could not increase spending on education because it had to spend RD$63 billion in debt service is a lie. He said that from January to April 2006, the government disbursed a total of RD$7.18 billion, which allows one to project a total debt service of RD$21.54 billion for 2006. Dauhajre says that someone should tell the President that the data provided is a lie and the reality is that the government had RD$41.45 billion that could be spent on education. The Minister for Technical Affairs for the Presidency (STP), Temistocles Montas said that the government did not have enough money to maintain the electricity subsidy, and to this statement, Andy says that the STP apparently does not know that the government has the resources but it "wastes" them. He points out that if the government had spent the same amount in February, March and April as it spent in January 2006, it would have saved RD$504 million in propaganda; RD$301 million in travel expenses; RD$189 in professional services; RD$959 million in fuel for vehicles used in election campaign convoys; RD$694 million in food aimed at influencing votes and RD$1.926 billion in patronage jobs. In total, the waste came to RD$4.57 billion between February and April 2006. He added that this sum did not include the New York Consulate payroll nor did it include the expenses related to the fair that will be held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the "Savior of the Fatherland, the illustrious Dr. Fernandez'" coming to power. Dauhajre ends his column with the admonishment that one has to be very brazen to tell the people that propane has to go up because there is no money.

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