8% budget to municipalities

[NewsWhore]

President Leonel Fernandez has agreed to hand over 8% of expected 2008 fiscal revenues to the country's municipalities. According to the law, city governments receive 10% of these revenues. In 2007, city governments received 6.42% of fiscal revenues. The RD$14.9 billion sum is RD$1.3 billion more than was allocated in 2007. Fernandez also instructed the government to take on a RD$2 billion municipal debt so that city employees could be fully covered under the Social Security Plan. Fausto Ruiz, president of the Dominican Municipal Federation (FEDOMU) made the announcement after a three-hour meeting with the President yesterday. The municipalities have been criticized for spending most of their revenues on wages, when the law sets that the budget be split equally between wages and municipal works. Diario Libre in an editorial today urges that the additional funds come with more supervision in the use of the funds. Up to now the practice has been that the municipalities have spent most of the money on current wages, and have even needed government assistance to pay the Christmas bonus. All this, aside from a lack of supervision in the granting of works, and sometimes scandalous contracting of goods and services, comments the editorialist today. He says that the increased decentralization should imply greater responsibility and supervision in the use of the funds.

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