"AIRD criticizes lack of consultation for the modification of the Solid Waste Law in the Senate"

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The Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic (AIRD) expressed its concern regarding the amendment to the General Law on Comprehensive Management and Coprocessing of Solid Waste (Law 225-20), approved this Wednesday by the Senate of the Republic.

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Mario Pujols, Executive Vice President of the AIRD, criticized the lack of dialogue in the process observed by the Senate on this occasion: “The approved bill has not been the result of a participatory and plural dialogue, as is customary in cases of bills of such importance as this one. We are even more surprised that the Ministry of Environment and the DO Sustainable Trust were not summoned to provide their technical opinion on the matter.”

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Pujols reiterated that the national industry supports the proper management of solid waste in the country and acknowledged the need for funds to achieve those goals. “What we reject, in addition to the accelerated and unconsulted manner in which this project was approved, is the insistence on establishing a special contribution without a technical study or regulatory impact analysis that justifies the magnitude of the proposed increases.”

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The guild will be prepared to share its approaches with the corresponding working commissions in the Chamber of Deputies, where the approved project now moves. “Our intention is for our congressmen to have the necessary inputs to ensure that this public policy is effective. An environmental law that is born without technical support is doomed to fail to achieve the objectives it claims to pursue,” concluded Pujols.

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About the municipality

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The business representative highlighted that, as a guild, they recognize the financial challenges faced by municipal governments throughout the national territory. However, he specified that it cannot be expected that the solid waste legal framework will resolve all the historical financing needs of the municipality. “The legal framework applicable to city councils provides that they must receive 10% of the State’s total revenue for the fulfillment of their functions. If that transfer does not occur or is insufficient, the solution lies in correcting that mechanism, not in shifting the burden to the special contribution of an environmental law that has a different and specific objective,” emphasized Pujols.

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