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Dominican Republic The Bureaucracy
Its large ministries, autonomous agencies, and public
corporations made the Dominican government by far the
largest
employer in the country. By dint of numbers and its
location in
the capital city, the bureaucracy constituted a major
interest
group in its own right.
The Dominican Republic's ineffectual civil service laws
left
government employees subject to wholesale turnovers with
virtually every change of government. The system worked
more on
the basis of patronage--with government positions given
out in
return for personal and political loyalty and
service--than on
the basis of merit.
In an effort to protect themselves, government workers
had
formed unions. However, their activities and effectiveness
were
generally severely circumscribed by the country's
antiquated
civil service laws. Some unions, such as those for
teachers and
employees of the state-run sugar industry, had themselves
become
highly politicized, usually in a leftist direction.
Frequent
clashes occurred between these unions and the police.
Dominated by patronage and rife with corruption, the
public
service was neither efficient nor responsive. Various
efforts had
been made over the years to reform this vast, cumbersome
bureaucracy. Yet politicians often hesitated to tamper
with it
because the patronage positions provided by the
bureaucracy
constituted one of the main sources of their power. For
the same
reason, they resisted the privatization of the many
inefficient
and cumbersome state-owned enterprises. Political leaders
recognized the inefficiencies of these bloated
enterprises, but
they also appreciated the effectiveness of buying the
loyalty of
friends, allies, and even political foes, by putting them
on the
public payroll.
Data as of December 1989
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