Santo Domingo. – Senator and President of the Partido Primero la Gente (PPG), Antonio Marte, announced today his support for the constitutional reform submitted by President Luis Abinader to the National Congress. However, he insisted that it must be comprehensive and not traumatic for the Dominican population.
Marte, who is also a senator for the province of Santiago Rodríguez, recalled his proposal made more than three years ago, in the sense that the National Revisory Assembly approve a Unicameral Congress made up of only 67 congressmen, elected by direct vote of the citizens.
He also considered that the number of national congressmen should be kept at five, instead of twenty as proposed in the project submitted by the Executive Branch, and that the number of overseas congressmen should be kept at seven, which would add up to 79 congressmen.
He stressed that the main idea he proposes is to facilitate the study, knowledge and approval of legislative initiatives, in addition to avoiding the atomization that currently occurs when bills and resolutions are subject to “the back and forth that occurs between the Senate of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies.”
“We are sure that the people will defend this proposal and we, together with the people, will defend this initiative. We are going to create a movement, with the participation of all sensible sectors of the Dominican Republic and we are going to make this proposal a reality,” said the legislator during a press conference at the PPG National House.
According to his analysis, a Unicameral Congress like the one he proposes would represent, in terms of savings, some four and a half billion pesos for 2024, which is the budget of the Senate of the Republic, while for that same period for the Chamber of Deputies it would be eight and a half billion pesos, “that is, thirteen billion pesos between both legislative chambers.”
As is public knowledge, according to a press release, senators have a base salary of RD$320,000, to which are added other fringe benefits of RD$50,000 for representation expenses; RD$25,000 for travel expenses, RD$25,000 for allowances, and RD$3,500 for each session they attend. As a complement to their services, they are entitled to 2 tax exemptions for vehicles.
He points out that in the case of deputies, they receive a salary of RD$175,474.65; representation expenses of RD$35,094.93; RD$45,000.00 in allowance, an amount that includes travel expenses for commissions and sessions. They also have the benefit of two tax exemptions for vehicles.
“Based on these calculations, the potential savings by creating a unicameral Congress would be 298 million, 177 thousand pesos; that is, three thousand five hundred seventy-eight million 177 thousand 083 annually, which would be 14, 312,500, 000 for each four-year period,” he emphasizes.
According to the statement, the senator received unanimous support from the full PPG leadership in his proposal to promote a Unicameral Congress with 67 elected congressmen. In addition, he indicates that the aforementioned data is what has made the proposal have been welcomed by various political, economic, social and community sectors of the Dominican Republic.
