Government announces the start of the formulation of draft bills for the 2025 Budget

Facade of the National Palace I Photo: Presidency

The Director General of Budget, José Rijo Presbot, recalled that the institutions are now in the process of formulating the draft budget laws for 2025, in accordance with the guidelines and budgetary ceilings provided by the General Directorate of Budget and with a view to delivering the bill, no later than October 1.

In this regard, he said that for next year they have set a ceiling of the same budget deficit as the current year, which corresponds to 3.1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“This has forced us to reduce expenses that are not associated with the institutions’ missions, by around 15,000 million pesos. That is, we have sought out savings items among all the institutions, reducing those items that do not respond to the institution’s mission,” said Rijo Presbot.

For the 2025 General State Budget Bill, Rijo Presbot said that the priorities remain the same: strengthening the entire national education system, health and social security. According to Rijo, measures have already been implemented to provide greater primary health care and it is expected to increase the GDP by at least 1 additional point to begin the process of strengthening primary health care.

Rijo Presbot, on the tax reform, said that “the problem is that in Dominican history, what people know of all the reforms that have been seen in recent years is a tax reform, not a fiscal reform. People think that we are talking about a tax reform and we are talking about a fiscal reform.” And he explained that the fiscal reform has three components: income, expenses and financing, with the clear objective of reducing the need for debt.

He also assured that, in terms of expenses, parts of the reform have already been implicitly included in the draft Budget Law with greater efficiency and improvement in the quality of spending for 2025.

Budget achievements: transparency, participation and efficiency

The Director General of the Budget highlighted some of the achievements of the institution he heads, in terms of transparency and social control, in particular. “As a country, we have managed to place ourselves in 4th place in the world in public participation and 1st in the entire continent, according to the results of the Open Budget Survey,” he said.

He also stressed that so far this year, 60% of the social demands raised are contained in the PGE that is being implemented.

He recalled the elimination of administrative debt as a government achievement and an effort to make the management of public resources transparent. “Be assured that the distribution of resources now pays off, because there is no administrative debt,” said Rijo Presbot.

The Budget Director General’s statements were made in an interview on a television programme.