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Daily News - 10 April 2000
Candidates tour the provinces over the weekend
With just 36 days remaining before the election, the pace of the presidential campaign is picking up. Over the weekend, the candidates criss-crossed the country seeking votes.

PLD party candidate Danilo Medina, headed east to La Altagracia and El Seibo Provinces, where he told crowds of supporters that the PRD would "drag the nation into an abyss of poverty and anarchy" if it were to win the election, and urged voters not to go "backwards." Medina also attacked PRD candidate Hipolito Mejia as "fearful" of meeting him in a public debate.

For his part, Mejia addressed an enormous throng in Santo Domingo on Sunday. The event was jointly sponsored by two women's organizations, known as the Feminine Campaign Command and the Women's Social Democratic Federation. Standing beside his running mate, Milagros Ortiz Bosch - the only woman with a place on a major party ticket - Mejia promised to "make the Dominican woman what I've made of my own daughters; educated and capable of competing as equals." And he added that men had better "be prepared to share the government with women.'

Ramon Almanzar, candidate of the left wing New Alternative Party, campaigned on Saturday in the eastern cities of Higuey, El Seibo and Hato Mayor, and on Sunday led marches in the northern cities of Nagua and Moca. Almanzar said that the three major parties all embody the values of "neo-liberalism" that favor the "haves" over the "have nots." He also alleged that the ruling PLD party was planning to remain in power irrespective of the outcome of the May 16th elections.

The PRSC candidate, nonagenarian Joaquin Balaguer, whose campaign exertions are restricted due to his physical limitations, headed north to Puerto Plata, where on Sunday he told a rally to vote for "patience, moderation and, above all, the ascendancy of Dominicans over foreigners." He left no doubt as to the identity of the "foreigners" when he warned that the DR must not be allowed to go the way of neighboring Haiti by destroying its natural resources.
Fernandez boosts distance learning
The World Bank has authorized a US$5.5 grant to establish distance learning programs throughout the nation's public schools. The money will be used to acquire hardware and software, and provide instructor training, for a program of the World Bank's Training Institute, which has created similar arrangements in other Asian, African and Latin American nations. The grant was announced by President Leonel Fernandez at World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C., before flying home following his U.S. tour. Fernandez pledged that 300 public schools would be technologically ready to support distance learning communications prior to his leaving office in mid-August. A World Bank delegation will arrive in SD on April 18th to launch the program.

As a result of a visit he made to the University of Maryland's Cyberuniversity, Fernandez also expressed the hope that distance learning technology at the tertiary level could also be made available to the "adult population that has demonstrated a great interest in continuing their studies." Maryland has been a leader in providing "on-line" university education, and the president will try to arrange for Maryland's assumption of an instructional role in the Cybernetic Park being built on the outskirts of the capital.

Fernandez announced yet another educational initiative, sustained via technology developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is called the "intelligent Communities" project, and will install internet centers in farming communities in order to help residents to transcend the communication barriers imposed by rural isolation, and to put them in touch with technological information about crop planting and harvesting.
New taxi fleet begins to arrive
The first hundred and eighty vehicles of what will ultimately be a fleet of 2,000 new taxis to serve the National District (i.e. Santo Domingo and environs) were unloaded from a Spanish transport ship at the pier in Haina over the weekend. The six passenger vehicles, which resemble fore-shortened mini-vans, will be powered by gasoil, and will be painted yellow. They are also equipped with meters, a bold departure from the meterless negotiations that determine the cost of a taxi ride in the capital.

Spain is financing their purchase and the distribution to taxi owners has been assigned by the government to the Technical Transport Office (OTT) and the Metropolitan Bus Services Office (OMSA). Another 300 vehicles are expected later this month, and the entire fleet will have been landed before the Fernandez government leaves office.
Water shortages are growing acute
The Director of the Santo Domingo Water and Sewer Company (CAASD) has asked the Director of the National Institute of Water Resources (INDRHI) to divert 75% of the water generated by the Valdesia Dam to Santo Domingo's uses. Currently, 50% of Valdesia's water is directed toward the capital, a quantity that nonetheless leaves "the majority of neighborhoods" in need of supplemental water deliveries, "once or twice a week," according to CAASD executive Euclides Sanchez. The supplemental 25%, if approved, would divert the liquid from rice and plantain cultivation to human use.

Neighborhoods along the capital's western and northern fringes have been hardest hit by water scarcity, according to Sanchez, due to the low level of the Haina River, from whence they derive their supply. As drought has diminished reservoirs, and environmental degradation has shrunk river flow, CAASD has resorted to well water exploration. "We are rehabilitating various wells around the capital, " said Sanchez, who appealed to citizens to practice all forms of water conservation.
Electricity regulator inert due to lack of funds
The newly empowered Superintendent of Electricity has not yet created consumer complaint booths due to lack of funds. Only a small part of the DR$11 million (about US$687,000) budgeted for the purpose has been delivered by the Ministry of Commerce. The decision to place the booths in each branch of the private electric companies was made the national cabinet this past February 7th. But no trace of them has been seen in any office of Edenorte, Edesur or AES del Este, the three regional power distributors.

Charged with the responsibility to teach the public to read electric meters and understand bills, to monitor the operations of the electric companies, and to otherwise protect electricity consumers' interests in the newly privatized environment, the financially strapped superintendent has accomplished very little of its mission little to date.

It started to recruit the personnel who would staff the consumer complaint offices, but none have been appointed because no money is available for salaries. Recently, it had to drop its publicity campaign to teach meter reading due to lack of money. Even its own offices remain unfurnished, with staff required to remain standing or wait until a desk is vacated at the end of a shift. An unnamed spokesman for the Commerce Ministry told El Siglo that "bureaucratic procedures are very slow," and requests for appropriations by Electricity Superintendent Marcos Cochon remain bogged down in "paperwork."
Electric company combats theft of service
Out of 400,000 electric consumers located in the "eastern region," comprising the eastern half of SD and the five easternmost provinces, just 275,000 are clients of the electric company that serves them. This finding was reported in a document titled "Report 1999-2000" issued by AES del Este, which is one of the trio of companies that now manage the nation's electrical distribution service. AES del Este is engaged in what is described as "an intense operation" to reduce losses due to fraud. The company "sends brigades into the streets daily" to disconnect "more than 3,000 fraudulent users."

AES del Este determined that some 32% of electric users in the eastern region were connected illegally. Over 100,000 new meters have been installed where none existed previously and the company believes that an additional 200,000 meters remain to be installed. New electronic meters have also been provided to major industrial clients. The report also documented the company's expenditures to date, including DR$350 million (around US$2,187,000) to install 300 kilometers of new triplex lines, 1,125 new transformers, and 4,000 new electric posts, among others.
Bank robbers make clean getaway
Four gun-wielding thieves struck a branch of the Popular Savings and Loan Association (Associacion Popular de Ahorros y Prestamos) and made off with over DR$400,000 (around US$25,000) last Friday. Only one of the thieves, who were described by bank employee Maria Isabel Garcia as "very young," took the trouble to wear a mask. The heist took place around 3:30 p.m. at the bank's branch on the busy intersection of Nuñez de Caceres and Gustavo Mejia Ricart Avenues in Santo Domingo.

The quartet entered guns in hand, and forced the lone security guard to lie down before approaching the tellers' cages. Unnamed witnesses stated that the gang parked on Gustavo Mejia Ricart Avenue, though none could provide details about their getaway vehicle. Police investigators are reported to have arrived at the scene within minutes and began interviewing witnesses, dusting for fingerprints, and showing pictures of known bank robbers to employees. No video of the crime was made since the targeted branch lacks a closed circuit TV security system. This is the second time in a month that a Popular Savings and Loan Association branch lacking closed circuit security cameras has been robbed.
SD Mayor in fender bender
For the second time in four months, the Mayor of Santo Domingo has been involved in an automobile accident. According to Robert del Castillo, press officer to Mayor Johnny Ventura, his honor had a "tremendous scare," and held "a discussion in an elevated tone of voice" with the other vehicle's driver. No one was hurt in the incident, but the gray Lexus SUV in which the mayor was being driven sustained "considerable damage."

City Hall wouldn't release details concerning the identity of the other vehicle's driver, nor specify the scene of the accident, which took place "a few minutes after 4:00 p.m." on Friday as the mayor was on route to an interview at the offices of Hoy, one of the major morning newspapers. This past December, as he was being driven in his official vehicle, Ventura was struck by another vehicle while traversing the busy intersection of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy Avenues, the city's two widest thoroughfares.
Traffic accidents on the increase in SD
Mayor Ventura is not alone. A division of the National Directorate of Urban Transport (DGTT) has disclosed that traffic incidents in the capital have increased by 12.15% and 14.68% respectively in the two years since 1997. The year 1999 saw 19, 917 accidents reported, as compared with 17,280 in 19978, and 18,380 in 1998. Fatalities in traffic accidents were 153 in 1997, 164 in 1998 and 167 in 1999. Pedestrians were fatal victims 9% of the time. Private automobiles accounted for 56.58% of accidents in 1999. Rear-ending and side collisions are most frequent. The Deputy Director of the DDGT. Miguelina Facundo Soraya, reported these data at last week's seminar titled "Transport in the Dominican Republic."
Impersonator Julio Sabala to perform
The gifted impersonator, Julio Sabala, whose uncannily precise impressions of performers such as Michael Jackson, Julio Iglesias and Stevie Wonder have delighted audiences for many years, is returning to his homeland for a limited engagement. Sabala, who won't reveal his age, is a native of SD, but performs mostly in Europe and North America. So local performances, such as those scheduled for April 27th in Santiago's Great Cibao Theater and the following three evenings in SD's National Theater, are a rarity.

Sabala's vocal gifts allow him to reproduce the timbre, pitch and range of any singer he selects, and he's recently added such "hot" performers as Ricky Martin and Andrea Bocelli to his repertoire. Sabala's singing is complemented by the exact wardrobe (Iglesia's double breasted blue blazer, for instance), hairstyle (Jackson's oiled curls for instance), and he captures the gestures with great fidelity as well. He even brings Cuba's famous mambo queen, Celia Cruz, to life. Details of the performances, such as times and ticket prices, will be provided here as they are released.
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