TITLE XI. OF THE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL REGIME AND OF THE CHAMBER OF ACCOUNTS
CHAPTER I. OF THE ECONOMIC REGIME
SECTION I. GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Article 217. Orientation and foundation
The economic regime is oriented towards the search for human development. It is founded in economic growth, the redistribution of wealth, social justice, equality, social and territorial cohesion and environmental sustainability, within a framework of free competition, equality of opportunities, social responsibility, participation and solidarity.
Article 218. Sustainable growth
Private initiative is free. The State will procure, together with the private sector, a balanced and sustainable growth of the economy, with price stability, tending to provide full employment and to increase the social well being, thorough the rational use of the available resources, the permanent formation of the human resources and with scientific and technological development.
Article 219. Private initiative
The State will encourage the economic private initiative, creating the policies necessary to promote the development of the country. Under the principle of subsidiarity the State, on its own account or in association with the private sector and severally, can exercise business activity with the goal of assuring the access of the population to basic goods and services and to promote the national economy.
Paragraph
When the State transfers its participation in one company, it can take the measures leading to democratizing the title of its shares and will offer to its workers, to the organizations of solidarity and of workers, special conditions to accede to such stock property. The law will regulate the matter.
Article 220. Subjection to the juridical order
In any contract of the State and of the persons of Public Law with foreign physical or juridical persons domiciled in the country, the subjection of these to the laws and jurisdictional organs of the Republic must be stated. However, the State and the other persons of Public Law can submit the disputes derived from the contractual relation to jurisdictions constituted by virtue of international treaties in force. They can also submit them to national or international arbitration, in accordance with the law.
Article 221. Equality of treatment
Business activity, public or private, receives the same legal treatment. The equality of conditions of national or foreign investment is guaranteed, with the limitations established in this Constitution and the laws. The law may concede special treatments to investments that are located in zones of a lesser degree of development or in activities of national interest, in particular those situated in the border provinces.
Article 222. Promotion of popular economic initiatives
The State recognizes the support of the popular economic initiatives of the development of the country; it encourages the conditions of integration of the informal sector in the national economy; it encourages and protects the development of the micro, small and medium business, the cooperatives, the family businesses and other forms of communitarian association for work, production, savings and consumption, that generate conditions which allow them to accede to financing, technical assistance and timely training.
SECTION II. OF THE MONETARY AND FINANCIAL REGIME
Article 223. Regulation of the monetary and financial system
The regulation of the monetary and financial system of the Nation corresponds to the Monetary Board as the superior organ of the Central Bank.
Article 224. Integration of the Monetary Board
The Monetary Board is integrated by no more than nine members including the Governor of the Central Bank, who presides over it, and the members ex-officio, of which the number will not be greater than three.
Article 225. The Central Bank
The Central Bank of the Republic is an entity of Public Law with juridical personality, its own patrimony and with functional, budgetary and administrative autonomy.
Article 226. Designation of the monetary authorities
The Governor of the Central Bank and the members of direct designation of the Monetary Board will be appointed by the Executive Power, in accordance with the law. During the time of their designation they may only be removed for the causes provided for in it.
Article 227. Direction of the monetary policies
The Monetary Board, represented by the Governor of the Central Bank, will have at its responsibility the direction and adequate application of the monetary, exchange and financial policies of the Nation and the coordination of the regulatory entities of the financial system and of the financial market.
Article 228. Issuance of bills and coins
The Central Bank, of which the capital is property of the State, is the only issuer of the bills and coins of national circulation and has as its objective to see to the stability of prices.
Article 229. National monetary unit
The national monetary unit is the Dominican Peso.
Article 230. Legal force and tender of the monetary unit
The bills issued, and the coins minted, by the Central Bank will be the only ones of legal circulation and tender, under the unlimited guarantee of the State and in the proportions and conditions that the law specifies.
Article 231. Prohibition of the issuance of monetary signs
The issuance of monetary paper or other monetary sign that is not authorized by this Constitution is prohibited.
Article 232. Modification of the currency or banking regime
By exception to what is established in Article 112 of this Constitution, the modification of the legal regime of the currency or of banking, will require the support of the two-thirds part of the total number of the members of one and the other legislative chamber, unless having being initiated by the Executive Power, at a proposal of the Monetary Board or with the favorable vote of it, in which case it will be governed by the provisions relative to the organic laws.
CHAPTER II. OF THE PUBLIC FINANCES
SECTION I. OF THE GENERAL BUDGET OF THE STATE
Article 233. Preparation of the budget
The preparation of the Bill of the Law of the General Budget of the State corresponds to the Executive Power, which contemplates the probable incomes, the proposed expenses and the financing required, conducted within a framework of fiscal sustainability, and assuring that the public indebtedness is compatible with the capacity for payment of the State.
Paragraph
In this Bill will be allocated in an individualized manner the assignments that correspond to the different institutions of the State.
Article 234. Modification of the budget
The Congress can include new elements and modify those that appear in the Bill of the Law of the General Budget of the State or in the Bills of law that distribute funds submitted by the Executive Power, with the vote of the two-thirds part of those present in each legislative chamber.
Paragraph
Once the Law of the General Budget of the State has been voted on, the budgeted resources of one institution may not be transferred to another unless by virtue of a law that, when not initiated by the Executive Power, must have the vote of the two-thirds part of those present in each legislative chamber.
Article 235. Majority of exception
The National Congress can modify the Bill of the Law of the General Budget of the State, when it is submitted after the date that is referred to in Article 128, numeral 2), literal g), with the absolute majority of the members of the registry of members in each chamber.
Article 236. Validity of distribution
No distribution of public funds will be valid, if it has not been authorized by the law and ordered by a competent functionary.
Article 237. Obligation to identify sources
The law that orders, authorizes a payment or engenders a pecuniary obligation to the charge of the State will neither have validity nor effect, except when that same law identifies or establishes the resources necessary for its execution.
Article 238. Criteria for the allocation of the public spending
It corresponds to the State to conduct an equitable allocation of the public spending in the territory. Its planning, programming, execution and evaluation shall respond to the principles of subsidiarity and transparency, as well as for the criteria of efficiency, priority and economy.
Article 239. Validity of the Law of the Budget
When Congress has not approved the Bill of the Law of the General Budget of the State by December 31st at the latest, the Law of the General Budget of the State of the previous year will govern, with the adjustments set forth in the Organic Law of the Budget, until its approval is produced.
Article 240. Publication of the general account
Annually, in the month of April, the general account of incomes and expenditures of the Republic conducted during the year, will be published.
SECTION II. OF PLANNING
Article 241. Strategy of development
The Executive Power, with prior consultation of the Economic and Social Council and with the political parties, will prepare and submit to the National Congress a strategy of development, which will define the vision of the Nation for the long term. The process of planning and public investment will be governed by the corresponding law.
Article 242. Multi-Annual National Plan
The Multi-Annual National Plan of the Public Sector and its corresponding updates will be remitted to the National Congress by the Executive Power, during the second legislature of the year in which the period of government is initiated, with prior consultation of the Council of Ministers, to take cognizance of the programs and projects to be executed during its term. The results and impacts of its execution will be conducted within a framework of fiscal sustainability.
SECTION III. OF TAXES ITRIBUTACIONI
Article 243. Principles of the tax regime
The tax regime is based on the principles of legality, justice, equality and equity so that any citizen [masculine] or citizen [feminine] can comply with the maintenance of the public expenses.
Article 244. Tax exemptions and transfer of rights
Individuals can only acquire, through concessions authorized by the law or contracts approved by the National Congress, the right to benefit, throughout the entire time stipulated by the concession or the contract and fulfilling the obligations imposed on them by one or the other, from exemptions, exonerations, reductions or limitations in taxes, contributions or fiscal or municipal rights, that arise from specific works or businesses so made as to attract the investment of new capital for the promotion of the national economy or for any other objective of social interest. The transfer of the rights granted by means of contracts will be subject to ratification on the part of the National Congress.
CHAPTER III. OF THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC FUNDS
Article 245. System of accounting
The Dominican State and all of its institutions, whether autonomous, decentralized or not, will be governed by a unique, uniform, integrated and harmonized system of accounting, of which the criteria will be established by the law.
Article 246. Control and supervision of the public funds
The control and the supervision over the patrimony, the incomes, expenses and use of the public funds will be conducted by the National Congress, the Chamber of Accounts, and the Office of the General Controller of the Republic, within the framework of their corresponding competences, and for the society through the mechanisms established by the law.
SECTION I. OF THE OFFICE OF THE GENERAL CONTROLLER OF THE REPUBLIC
Article 247. Internal control
The Office of the General Controller of the Republic is the organ of the Executive Power that guides the internal control, it exercises the internal supervision and the evaluation of the due collection, management, use and investment of the public resources and authorizes the orders of payment, with prior verification of the compliance with the legal and administrative procedures, of the institutions within its scope, in accordance with the law.
SECTION II. OF THE CHAMBER OF ACCOUNTS
Article 248. External control
The Chamber of Accounts is the superior external organ of fiscal control of the public resources, of the administrative processes and of the patrimony of the State. It has juridical personality, technical character and enjoys administrative, operative and budgetary autonomy. It will be composed of five members, elected by the Senate of the Republic from the ternas presented to it by the Chamber of Deputies, for a period of four years and they will remain in their functions until their substitutes are appointed.
Article 249. Requirements
To be the member of the Chamber of Accounts it is required to be a Dominican [masculine] or Dominican [feminine] in full exercise of civil and political rights, to be of recognized ethical and moral solvency, to have reached the age of thirty years old, to be accredited with a university degree and to be enabled for professional exercise of the career, preferably in the areas of accounting, finance, economics, law or related areas, and the other conditions determined by the law.
Article 250. Attributions
Its attributions will be, aside from those conferred by the law:
- To examine the general and particular accounts of the Republic;
- To present to the National Congress the reports concerning the supervision of the patrimony of the State;
- To audit and analyze the execution of the General Budget of the State approved every year by the National Congress, taking as a base the state of the collection and investment of the incomes presented by the Executive Power, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws, and to submit the corresponding report to it on April 30th of the following year at the latest, for its cognizance and decision.
- To issue norms of obligatory character for the inter-institutional coordination of the organs responsible for the control and audit of the public resources.
- To conduct special investigations at the requirement of one or both of the legislative chambers.
CHAPTER IV. OF THE SOCIAL COMPACT ICONCERTACION SOCIALI
Article 251. Economic and Social Council
The social compact is an essential instrument to assure the organized participation of employers, workers and other organizations of the society in the permanent construction and strengthening of social peace. In order to promote it there will be an Economic and Social Council, a consultative organ of the Executive Power in economic, social and labor matters, of which the conformation and functioning will be established by the law.
