The Minister of Finance, José Manuel (Jochi) Vicente, explained yesterday that the decrease of 303.9 million pesos in the proposal to modify the current national budget, for the reduction of infrastructure vulnerabilities in the event of natural disasters.
Vicente also told Diario Libre that it will not be necessary to submit a new addendum to the project to modify the national budget submitted by the Executive Power, due to the damage caused by the hurricane fionabecause in the current one there are items destined for emergencies and disasters.
In Annex 3 of the complementary budget approved by the Chamber of Deputies -and pending in the Senate- there is a list with the decreases in appropriations for 2022, distributed by institutional classification by program. In this there are 303,990,000 pesos scheduled for the reduction of vulnerabilities in infrastructure in the event of natural disasters, within the funds of the Ministry of Public Works.
In this regard, Vicente explained that the reductions in a reformulated budget are not made generic, but by programs. “If the modification is not made, the money cannot be used in another program or another institution,” he observed.
He indicated that Public Works has a program financed with external resources from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and another from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). “If the program is not executed, the financing does not arrive,” he said, by way of explaining why that item was redirected in the budget.
He specified that one of these programs is related to actions that have to do with activities related to Hurricane Matthew, which affected the country in 2016, and floods recorded in 2017. “None of these programs has anything to do with Fiona,” he insisted.
99millions of pesos
They will be allocated in a first contribution to the eight provinces in emergency by Fiona.
8provinces
most affected by Fiona: La Altagracia, La Romana, El Seibo, Samaná, Hato Mayor, María Trinidad Sánchez, Duarte and Monte Plata.
Over modifying due to Fiona passing
On August 25, the Executive Power submitted a bill that modifies Law 345-21 of the General State Budget for 2022. After questioning in public opinion that in said proposal it was contemplated to transfer 4,250.4 million pesos of the budget of the Ministry of Education to other state institutions, on September 8 the Executive Power deposited in the Chamber of Deputies an addendum to the submitted modification project, in which excluded Education from the list.
Due to the passage of Fiona, the concern arose as to whether another addendum would be submitted to allocate resources for the purpose of serving the communities affected by the hurricane. In this regard, the Minister of Finance said: “It is not necessary. The approved budget has a clause to deal with this type of emergency.” “We have the resources and mechanisms to deal with Fiona,” he insisted.
Among other items, in the current national budget there are 109,076,099 pesos set aside for the Ministry of the Presidency for attention and disaster prevention. Also, the Executive Power, through the Treasury, is authorized to contract financing or contingent risk management instruments for disasters caused by natural phenomena, for a maximum amount of 300 million dollars.
