FEDA Director responds to report and assures that the payroll was reduced and unified

Santo Domingo.— The Special Fund for Agricultural Development (FEDA) issued a clarifying note in response to the report published on February 17, 2026, with the title “Hecmilio Galván increased payroll spending of the FEDA from RD$207MM to RD$404MM”, broadcast by the program Bajo el Foco. In the statement, the institution denies that the payroll has experienced increases between 2021 and 2025, and maintains that, on the contrary, it was subjected to a process of reduction and administrative consolidation. According to the official version, when the current administration took office on November 1, 2021, the FEDA operated with seven internal payrolls and one registered in the Financial Management Information System (SIGEF), which together grouped 1,059 employees. In 2022, in coordination with the General Directorate of Budget (DIGEPRES), the Ministry of Public Administration (MAP) and the Comptroller General of the Republic, those parallel payrolls were eliminated and all personnel were integrated into a single formal payroll within the SIGEF.

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According to the data provided by the entity, in 2021 the FEDA had around 1,095 employees and an approximate monthly expenditure of RD$35 million. In 2026, the payroll was reduced to 695 servers, with a monthly cost close to RD$27 million. The institution attributes the budgetary increase recorded in intermediate years to the accounting formalization of payments that previously remained dispersed in unconsolidated internal structures. The report from Bajo el Foco was based on the budget execution records from the FEDA portal, where the chapter on remunerations and contributions went from RD$207,935,000 in 2021 to RD$404,748,048 in 2025.

The FEDA assured that it currently does not maintain internal payrolls and that all payments are processed exclusively through SIGEF, under the supervision of the governing bodies of the State. The institution added that the supporting documents for the unification process are available in the digital archives of the General Comptroller's Office of the Republic, the MAP and the DIGEPRES.