The ex-president Leonel Fernandez analyzed in a press conference, the speech of the President of the Dominican Republic, which he defined as: “Two years of pricks, exaggerations, lies and unfulfilled promises.”
The leader of the People’s Force Party considered that, “It is gross manipulation to want to compare works that have been built and are in operation with broken pieces and unfulfilled promises. In the case of the UASD, for example, during the government administration of President Leonel Fernández, a true transformation was carried out.
Fernández explained that in all the relevant issues of national life, the government has failed to fulfill the promises made, leaving them in the first stages or in minimum percentages of execution.
“This can be seen when evaluating that the government has promised some 223 works throughout the national territory with a projected investment of 452 billion pesos,” Fernández confirmed.
The opposition political leader went on to explain that: “As of August 5 of this year, construction expenses in process only amount to 13.468 million pesos, that is, less than 3% of the total promised works.”
During the meeting with the press, the members of the People’s Force showed their reaction of astonishment at this lack of compliance, inconsistent with the debt race that the government has had, in a constant and sustained manner, which has led to a large debt growth.
Before what the president of the party emphasizes that: “It is striking that this lack of execution of public works occurs despite the alarming way in which the Dominican government has indebted the country.”
“The consolidated debt from June 2020 to June 2022 grew by about 20.7 billion dollars, which means that it grew by more than one million million pesos. In other words, this means that the government has borrowed on average, from its first day until today, 1,500 million pesos a day.
The unfulfilled works, as cited by the FP, threaten the quality of life of the Dominican population in such sensitive issues as health, food and citizen security and employment.
“Breach of promises has also reached the health sector. In this regard, the government offered a network of trauma centers, an oncology network and three health cities in the cities of Santiago, San Cristóbal and San Francisco de Macorís,” the former president of the Republic listed.
“On the contrary, what has been happening is that many of the public hospitals have progressively deteriorated, affecting access to health for the majority of the population. In addition, despite the arguments, the government has neglected the high-cost drug program, endangering the lives of patients suffering from cancer and other catastrophic diseases,” continued Leonel Fernández.
Regarding the population’s claim for citizen insecurity, Fernández pointed out the government’s inability to deal with the situation.
«The Dominican population is terrified by citizen insecurity. The government has been unable to implement an effective plan to combat crime. In these two years, we have heard various announcements of projects, of hiring foreign advisers and even of an unusual and ridiculous National Police trust, which has never been explained; therefore, nobody knows how it would work », he said.
Fernández concluded his words by saying that: “Two years of government, as the Dominican people would say: A lot of foam and little chocolate.”
