Chamber of Deputies, a restaurant with 68 million and 80 employees

Santo Domingo.- The restaurant operating within the Chamber of Deputies is not only sustained by frequent food purchases. It also has a defined budget and its own personnel structure. According to the available data, the institution has allocated 68 million pesos per year in the food category, a figure that supports a continuous operation. Behind that operation, there is a monthly payroll of approximately RD$4,013,100, distributed among 80 employees directly linked to the restaurant. The structure includes a manager, chef, sous chefs, supervisors, waiters, kitchen assistants, bakers, butchers, and cleaning staff. The restaurant manager earns RD$120 thousand monthly, the chef RD$100 thousand, and the sous chefs RD$75 thousand each, in addition to an operational team that keeps the service active every working day. This is not a one-off service. It is a permanent operation within the institution, with permanent staff, its own logistics, and constant supply. That operation coexists with the legislators’ salary structure. Each deputy receives a base salary, to which is added diet and representation expenses, which together exceed RD$90 thousand additional monthly, not including other benefits associated with the position.

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Thus, within the Chamber of Deputies, the expenditure on food, the restaurant payroll, and the income of the legislators are part of the same institutional dynamic that remains active throughout the year.