A Better DR

[NALs]

If you could solve one and only one problem that affects the DR, which one would it be?

A) Blackouts/Brownouts
B) Public Education
C) The Road/Highway Network
D) Public Housing
E) Crime
F) Litter/Polution
G) Corruption
H) Illegal immigration/emigration
I) Public Health
J) Other

[Chris]

Public education. An educated electorate may well elect the right person for the job. (Ooops, I did not say that .. even an educated electorate has no influence over elections in some parts of the world.. )

Public education anyways! As long as the accent is on education and not on public.

[Luperon]

e=g=most of the crime

[bob saunders]

Get rid of the corruption and you have the funding to improve most of the other choices. Fully fund education, set up proper garbage disposal, pay and train police properly, build more and better hydro dams, solar power, wind power, more hospitals that are better equiped...etc. Billions of pesos go into pockets they don't belong in, and its not just the government, its a national passtime.

[Yachtmaster]

Eliminate corruption and all the rest will eventually take care of itself.....

[Chirimoya]

Agreed. Corruption is the root cause of all the other evils on the list.

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by bob saunders

Get rid of the corruption and you have the funding to improve most of the other choices. Fully fund education, set up proper garbage disposal, pay and train police properly, build more and better hydro dams, solar power, wind power, more hospitals that are better equiped...etc. Billions of pesos go into pockets they don't belong in, and its not just the government, its a national passtime.

I wonder if anyone can actually put a monetary figure on the funds sucked out of the gubmint system theorugh theft/corruption.

Anyone?

Bueller...???

[DRob]

A strong commitment to quality public education should be the first priority. You need an educated, informed and involved electorate to truly create an environment where corruption is not tolerated.

Otherwise, you get "person X, por la gente" politicians who prefer to have government serve them, instead of the other way around.

[rio2003]

Corruption - it gives rise to so many of the other listed problems.

[NALs]

Originally Posted by cobraboy

I wonder if anyone can actually put a monetary figure on the funds sucked out of the gubmint system theorugh theft/corruption.

Anyone?

Bueller...???

I remember a report that was made public by USAID in 2006 or 2007 about corruption in the DR that stated something like corruption costs RD$6 billion (US$177m) a year, or 2.1% of household incomes.

While the report was made to quantify corruption in the DR, I've always known that while corruption is a problem in the DR, its not as bad as the public perceives it to be. Even if all corruption was eliminated the DR would still fall short of having all the funds necessary to effectively fund and fix many of the problems. In fact, in many cases the improvement would be negligible.

But, as economists you and I know very well that public opinion is almost always off with their assumptions on just about everything, hence its not worth going into a debate about this but its interesting to see what people think about the subject.

-NALs