Santo Domingo, RD.
Presidency Minister Lisandro Macarrulla said that with the arrival of vaccines in March, as planned, the government predicts that the economy will grow by 6% in 2021.
“This will be done by restructuring public spending and improving the quality of life of Dominicans, without the need to increase tax payments to the population,” the minister said when interviewed on the Aeromundo television program, produced by journalist Guillermo Gómez.
The minister stressed that the government is doing the necessary work to combat the pandemic and keep the economy stable, this “can be seen by comparing the mortality rate with other countries”.
Macarrulla began the interview by saying that he is aware that the world is going through a crisis because of Covid-19, which has limited resources and previously established plans, and has forced it to prioritize projects that were not in the government’s agenda.
Among the issues raised by the minister that currently affect the population are health, public transport, citizen security, Haitian migration, education and tourism.
Regarding the health sector, he defended that two million Dominicans have joined, as new users of the National Health Insurance (SENASA).
Macarrulla spoke of the optimistic vision with which the government’s plan is working to solve the problems that the country has suffered for decades and the results obtained from the implementation of the government plan in the five months of Luis Abinader’s government.
Macarulla referred to public transport as a “big problem” and assured that the government is addressing it with a mass transport program, which includes monorails, cable cars and subway extensions and bus routes in places where there are only public cars.
He said that the government is also working on the development of 62,000 houses with their titles, to which the most needy will have access, with priority for members of the Armed Forces (Armed Forces).
The minister said that the solution to the migration problem of undocumented Haitians on the national territory is in the pact signed by the Dominican president with the neighboring country, which guarantees the collaboration of the Dominican government for building hospitals on Haitian territory.
Macarulla says that “a socially, politically and economically sustainable Dominican Republic can only be achieved if all Dominicans continue to work to solve the problems they are currently facing for the first time in history simultaneously and responsibly.”