Santo Domingo Este councilors this Thursday approved a proposal that will allow them to self-allocate travel expenses worth RD $ 22,000 per month.
The aldermen have postponed the knowledge of the request for an urgent declaration from the municipality because of the problem of waste collection,
This amount will be added to their current salary of RD $ 220,000 and the RD $ 25,000 they receive for fuel.
The aforementioned measure was suggested by the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) spokesman Evelyn Fernández, despite the issue not being on the agenda for the day.
It was offered as an amendment to the councilors’ compensation scheme and received approval, without prior reading or consultation of the budget planning for the year, from the PRM bloc and the other banks, with the exception of Councilor Gisela Güílamo, of the Frente Amplio and Winston Báez of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
Santo Domingo Este City Councilors meet only once every 30 days, and they have not met for the entire month of January, postponing the material waste problem for another four weeks.
So far, those of Santo Domingo Este are the councilors with the highest salaries in the entire country (RD $ 220.00), above their counterparts in the National District (RD $ 120,000) and Santiago (RD $ 100,000).
With the daily allowance they approved, they would receive benefits of RD $ 242,000, more than double that of their peers in the Dominican Republic’s capital.
After meeting with the Presidency Administrative Minister, José Ignacio Paliza, the PRM councilors were expected to make progress in knowing and discussing the specifications presented by the mayor’s office led by Manuel Jiménez to contract a new waste collection company.
This agreement was designed in collaboration with international technicians from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to respond to the waste crisis affecting part of the municipality, was handed over to councilors in December 2020, but these officials have not yet started to study the proposal.
Some councilors are demanding that UNDP technical support be discontinued in order to discuss the topic pending debate.