President Luis Abinader will present today before the National Assembly, at the end of his first six months in office at the head of the Government, a balance sheet as a report on the achievement of the objectives undertaken during its inauguration on 16 August.
This number will have to show, in the period of six months that it meets today with its intervention before the bicameral entities, a classification of all these commitments and of the successes achieved by its government in different fields, together with the degrees of compliance reached so far. .
The head of state will arrive in the legislature this morning, in accordance with a constitutional mandate, considering in his favor acceptable levels of popularity, part of which his personal style of government, his leadership in the face of the pandemic, has contributed much encouragement to economic recovery. , its policy of transparency, closeness to people and a recurring defense and discourse in favor of the most vulnerable groups.
Today will be the second time that Abinader appears before the joint sitting of the chambers, after his participation on August 16, 2020, when he was sworn in as sixty-seven presidents of the Dominican Republic.
The purpose of everything he says and reports that he has fulfilled his proposals will be known and weighed, in addition to criticism and praise, based on the lines of action presented six months ago, when he promised to promote changes desired by the population.
During his inaugural address on August 16, Abinader warned in the preamble that his speech would not be a government program and no list of work to be undertaken, although he later stressed that “this presidency, which begins today, will be that of “urgent change” as well as “irreversible change”.
Then, the president began to draw the line of work by executing a government dynamic, urging his officials to work tirelessly to achieve the goals set.
Covered and general health
With coronavirus being the main obstacle and the challenge his newly inaugurated government will face, just over five months after the deadly plague in the country, the head of state listed his commitments to the country.
Specifically, he announced a national plan for the detection, isolation, surveillance and treatment of infected people “on an unprecedented scale in our history” and guaranteed access to the entire population to the vaccine against the virus, “as soon as it is available.”
He promised to increase the health budget to more than 66,000 million pesos in the first four months of the government to address this urgency and “to forever transform our health care model.”
When the new government took office, the virus was booming, with at least 1,400 deaths and more than 85,000 infected.
As of this date, in February 2021, the country is in the process of applying the vaccine against Covid-19
Another promise in the field of health was to increase the number of beds, double the capacity of beds in intensive care units, set up 12 temporary hospitals and train more than 1,000 doctors and nurses in a large national program to be more efficient in pandemic control.
He promised to restructure and eliminate unnecessary or duplicate bodies and institutions and to allocate these funds to include more than two million citizens in family health insurance.
The economy
Fearing damage to the economy due to the effects of the pandemic, Abinader, warning that bans and fear of traveling would reduce the number of tourists to the island, exports suffer from global demand depression, small and medium-sized companies close, lose proposed, to reverse this damage, to improve the quality of spending, to eliminate waste and corruption “which for years only increased the deficit and, consequently, the public debt, without improving the quality of life of the Dominicans”.
At the same time, the President guaranteed the creation of conditions for the recovery of production and employment, the continuation of the FASE, Stay at Home and Pa’Ti assistance programs and the expansion of tax facilities, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises and enterprises. and the financing program for the sectors affected by the pandemic for over 100,000 million pesos.
Another promise by the president was to start a repair and construction plan, with an impact on more than 30,000 homes, to reactivate local economies, with priority given to projects in the tourism, industrial and export sectors that create jobs and are retained from lack of funding.
Its ambitious economic recovery plan has been proposed to have, through the Agricultural Bank, 5,000 million pesos in zero-interest financing for the new plantation, marketing support and technical assistance to ensure food security.
In terms of investing in areas that create formal jobs and strategic works, it has committed to building the Amber Highway, which would make it possible to travel from Santiago to Puerto Plata in 25 minutes and from Santo Domingo to Puerto Plata in two hours .
He highlighted the tourist development of Pedernales, which will develop its own airport, and the construction of 3,000 rooms in various hotels.
Another work, the port of Manzanillo, which will allow the export of bananas and free zones from Santiago and the northwest line, was among the president’s top priorities.
JUSTICE
An independent lawyer
The popular cry.
Another measure he promised to abide by was in the field of justice, guaranteeing that one of his first decrees to be signed would be “the appointment of a politically independent attorney general capable of doing the right thing, even if everyone is against, and to avoid the unjust, even if everyone is in favor of it ”.
Against corruption
Considering that the government should be subject to the supervision of the citizens, he strongly addressed this issue, noting that “at this time I want to be very clear, precise and strong”, because in his government “it will not be allowed, under any circumstances, that the corruption of the past remains unpunished, the one who stole money from people, must necessarily pay for their actions in court.
He left his note to his officials: “whoever makes a mistake with people’s money will be immediately dismissed and brought to justice.”