SANTO DOMINGO. The Ministry of the Presidency has very specific functions … but very broad. Each minister has given his seal and fine-tuned his management to his personality and the plans of the president. Lisandro Macarrulla, a businessman today a politician, now occupies that office, door to door with that of the President of the Republic.
—What is the axis of your management?
In my case, the President decided to give me some specific functions that he, within his government program, understood to be priority issues. The government program that we designed together in the presidential cabinet was created about two and a half years before the electoral process. He identified major transformations in issues that had accumulated deficiencies for years: subsidized debts from social and communications programs, a major transformation in the health sector, the electricity sector, transportation and road mobility in the Dominican Republic. The topic of digital transformation is very interesting. And we run a program that he has been very interested in, which is the Happy Family housing program.
—A plan 11,000 homes in a year. Why was it not articulated around the INVI?
Because the Happy Family plan is not a state housing plan. It is a social assistance plan, for low-income housing, designed for the Dominican who cannot access his own home due to the mechanisms that exist today. These people are given the facility to overcome the two great obstacles: the initial one and the mortgage payments. The state does not build or lend money; Through PROSOLI, a mechanism has been created to compensate the initial part and the monthly payment of the mortgage will be relatively low because the State is going to have a subsidy scheme with any financial institution or cooperatives. That is why this project is managed within a particular unit that depends directly on the presidency.
—How has the private sector responded to public-private partnerships?
Very well, I was surprised. We have a portfolio of almost 4,000 million dollars in PPP projects. When I say in the folder, it is that they are not already in execution because there is an entire evaluation process to determine if they are projects of public interest, because the State is not going to do everything that is of private interest and that process is really a little slow. The same law establishes deadlines to achieve transparency, to be inclusive. It is both national and international investment and the president is already taking the first steps. We began by inaugurating in Barahona a private investment with the State that he had announced at the beginning of his government: the port.
– What do you blame for this response from the private sector?
I believe more than anything to transparency. Previously, there was a general complaint from investors that they put some obstacles in their way in an interested way and in that regard we have been very careful. You have seen what the president’s reactions have been when these principles are violated. That has been highly valued. People trust that the offer that we present to society will allow us an institutional framework with more guarantees and that their investments will be respected. We have a correct view that job creation must be generated in the private sector …
—How do you handle this with your party colleagues?
We are handling it well, we are incurring some political expenses, but everything is being handled well due to the dynamism that the economy is going to have, and you saw how we are recovering from the situation that the pandemic created for us. Already last month all sectors were above the pre-covid period, with the exception of tourism.
“Since when have you worked with the president?”
You always meet friends through third parties and that situation occurred. In this case, there was great empathy for politics. Although I was an entrepreneur, I was always focused on social issues. Being president of CONEP 12 years ago, in a speech at the American Chamber of Commerce I proposed a system change for the Dominican Republic. It was a document obviously agreed upon by the CONEP leadership, but it was quite revolutionary; It was very surprising that a business group that is conservative in all societies, made such a proposal. There was a radical change between the position of the business sector at that time because we proposed changes in a system that had economically benefited everyone who was there (including myself) but we understood – and I continue to understand – that changes were needed for sustainability. Not enough progress has been made or I can tell you that we have made virtually no progress at all. If we want to have a country where our companies can continue to operate, where we can have political and social stability, we have to achieve a more inclusive system.
“Do you see that stability in danger?”
If we do not make the transformations that we are proposing from the government plan of President Abinader, I see it in danger. If we make the transformations in the area of education, health, in digital transformation and in areas such as the electricity sector … Can you imagine that 50% of the accumulated deficit that the Dominican Republic has is due to the electricity subsidy? We have burned energy and oil … and corruption of course. If today we had half of what we owe to invest in development projects, this country would be a paradise.
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