The Dominican Republic has immersed itself in a dialogue process for institutional strengthening and efficient management of the State. In addition to bringing national legislation up to date, the reforms seek to strengthen institutions, guarantee judicial independence, protect property rights, and eliminate government bureaucracy.
Reforms are key to achieving an efficient and effective State. This is confirmed by the study “Towards a Successful and Sustainable Reform of the Public Administration in the Dominican Republic”, which was carried out in 2020 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
This report highlights that, in the case of the Dominican Republic, there is a lack of institutional organization. It establishes that, in order to guarantee the success and sustainability of the reforms, it is vital to have good innovation and change management in order to encourage the generation and implementation of new ideas, while ensuring that the human dimension is taken into account and administrative culture.
Currently, the Economic and Social Council (CES) is considering important reforms that, if approved, would bring significant progress in terms of competitiveness and institutionality, among which are the following:
– Labor: Its purpose is to improve the quality of jobs and the standards that facilitate their development and adoption today.
– Education: seeks that the investment of 4% of GDP translates into a quality education that adequately trains those who will make the required transformations in Dominican society.
– Transparency and Institutionality: He hopes to provide greater independence to the Public Ministry and the Chamber of Accounts so that they face impunity and corruption.
– Electric sector: This seeks to improve the energy service so that it is of quality, with competitive costs and wide coverage, distancing the sector from political influences.
– Water sector: seeks to provide access to the entire population and create wastewater treatment systems and improvements in the technification of irrigation systems to increase savings.
– National Police: seeks to transform the legal, institutional, operational and functional structure of the body of order to guarantee citizen security.
– Modernization of the State: seeks to provide an agile response to investment requirements or state permits, through the Zero Bureaucracy Law and the Efficient Government project.
– Digital transformation: With this, it is expected to make the most of the use of Information and Communications Technologies for the optimal functioning of the Government agencies and all the social and productive structures of the country.
– Health and social security: establishes universal, supportive, efficient and quality care to protect the physical and mental condition of the entire population.
– Transportation: It aims to create a modern urban and interurban mobility system and achieve a collectivization of transport that contributes to decongesting traffic.
– Hydrocarbons: seeks the transformation of the country’s fuel matrix to reduce pollution, promote greater energy efficiency and produce significant savings in foreign exchange.
– Prosecutor: This aims to transform the system of government spending and income and greater efficiency and creation, elimination or reduction of taxes to promote economic growth with development that ensures the sustainability of finances.
The reforms are important to guarantee competitiveness and achieve the development of the territories. It is essential to modernize the State with a view to increasing the confidence and sustainability of our country to attract more private investment, create jobs and generate greater wealth for all its citizens.