Government allocates more than 3 billion pesos monthly for social subsidies

Santo Domingo – The Dominican State allocates 3.7 billion pesos monthly to help the most needy families through its various social subsidy programs.

This was informed by the director of the Social Subsidies Administrator (Adess), Catalino Correa Hiciano, during a conversation at the Expo Provisiones 2024 fair, organized by the National Council of Commerce in Provisions (CNCP) at the Sambil Plaza.

The official said that after his arrival to the State, the government of President Luis Abinader doubled social aid through the Aliméntate program, both in the amount of monthly money and in the number of beneficiaries.

He indicated that in 2019, the Aliméntate program had 780,000 beneficiaries who each received 825 pesos, so a total of 683 million pesos per month was being allocated in that plan.

He pointed out that the current government doubled it to 1,560,000 beneficiaries, who receive 1,650 pesos so now 2,574 million pesos are being allocated to the Aliméntate program every month.

Correa Hiciano indicated that in addition to Aliméntate, there are the Bono Luz and Bono Gas programs.

He said that 574 million pesos per month are being contributed to energy aid and 630 million pesos per month in Bono Gas.

Call to take care of social programs

The official called on the merchants to manage the social programs since, in addition to aiding the population, they represent an economic contribution directed towards the commerce sector.

“That the merchants identify the economic impact that the social aids have had on the commerce sector,” he said.

He reminded traders that they have a fundamental role in caring for the social programs.

“To be able to defraud the social programs it has to be through a verifone and there the fundamental role of the merchants because the verifones only the merchants have them and if a merchant does not lend his verifone does not make an agreement with the card cloners it is impossible for the card cloning to have a result. In that sense, the merchants had to know that the main responsible for a family not receiving benefits fell on them and with a great threat,” he indicated.

He added that this is why the authorities went around the whole country meeting with the merchants so that they would be as committed as the executives of the social programs.

Supporting local production

This fifth version of the fair is dedicated to Grupo Linda and its president, Mr. Félix García. It has Honduras as a guest country under the slogan “Together for the stability of trade.”

During a discussion, Miguel Blasco, representative of the Linda Group, stressed the importance of national production and supporting what is generated locally.

He gave the coronavirus pandemic as an example, during which there was no shortage of products in the Dominican Republic, and traders were able to supply the consumption demands.

“That should be an example for the authorities, companies and consumers that we should give importance and believe in national production, not to depend on imports,” he said.

He added that “the basics, national production for the consumption of our population has to be here and we as consumers have to be aware of that and support what is Dominican, what is produced here.”

Blasco said that Grupo Linda’s company, Trans Agrícola, produces all its products locally, and pointed out that Grupo Linda currently has about 3,000 direct jobs in its five companies.

He added that the group also implements assistance programs in the various communities.