DR1 will not be updated tomorrow, Friday, 24 September on occasion of the national holiday that pays homage to the Virgin Mercedes. Headline news will be compiled for the Monday, 27 September issue. Readers can always refer to the DR1 Forums for updated information. These are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. See http://www.dr1.com/forums
The Ministry of Public Works has resumed the construction of the Avenida Circunvalacion Norte, the highway that would detour traffic headed north from the city center of Santiago. The highway would cut traveling time to Puerto Plata, for instance, by at half an hour at peak traffic times. Once completed, the trip to Puerto Plata from Santo Domingo could be completed in less than three hours. The detouring of traffic will also increase the quality of life in Santiago. Public Works Minister Freddy Perez said that the highway will cost RD$6 billion, will have 30 kilometers and six lanes. The construction includes several overpasses. The highway had been started during the first Fernandez administration (1996-2000), but the Mejia government did not consider it a priority.
Different newspapers mean different takes on the current debates in the Senate. The tax reform package – an supposedly "urgent" measure – has been stuck in Congress for nearly two months and, just recently, the PRD senators tacked on a new tax on imported High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), a move that was advanced by local sugar producers and hotly rejected by United States Ambassador Hans Hertell. Today's Listin Diario headlines the decision made by the PRD's political commission, as headed by Vicente Sanchez Baret, to remove the corn syrup from the tax proposals. Andres Bautista, the Senate president, said that the vote on the bill would take place this afternoon, to allow for more lobbying and negotiations between the Senate and the PRD. PLD Senator Jose Tomas Perez (PLD-National District, Santo Domingo) told reporters that President Fernandez had proposed that the issue of the HFCS be taken up with the World Trade Organization. Nonetheless, the PRSC is insisting that the 25% tax on HFCS be kept in the bill, even if it jeopardizes the passage of the Free Trade Agreement in the United States Congress. An El Caribe story, whose headline read "PRD blocks road to tax reform," reported that a meeting of 26 of the 29 PRD senators stalled the debates in the Senate, and, after the meeting concluded, Sanchez Baret and Hernani Salazar were cited as saying that they were not sure whether the tax package "was necessary or not" given that the government has been reducing subsidies.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Jorge Subero Isa told his audience that the new penal code that enters into effect this Monday (27 September) will revolutionize the justice system in the Dominican Republic. He categorically discarded the idea that the new code favors delinquents, who, he said, "are favored by a lack of jobs and opportunities, not by the judicial standards." Speaking at a luncheon of the Bani Alliance at the Club Naco in Santo Domingo, Subero Isa said that with the application of the new code, within five years there will not be one case pending a hearing or decision. He said the fact that some people spend ten or twelve years in prison before being found innocent was "perverse" and used the same word for the cases of people jailed before the Justice Department and the National Police have formalized any charges. With the new code, the charges will be drawn up and a judge will decide if an arrest is warranted. Subero Isa also announced that the new office of the Public Defender will begin its work on Monday by offering free judicial assistance to the poor. Among the innovations announced by the justice was the 21 October opening of the first Family Court that will deal with divorces and correction of documents.
Ruben Montas, the official spokesperson for the electric sector, told reporters that the government had paid US$10 million to the electricity generators for them to purchase fuel for their equipment. Montas announced that over the next few months until December the government will disburse US$10 million a month to each of the generators to help restore stability to the beleaguered sector. Of the US$50-million line of credit announced by President Fernandez last month, US$10 million had already been disbursed, meaning the generators have received US$20 million in the last few days. According to Montas, the money will be distributed through Ede-Sur as they are the unit with direct commercial relations with the generators. While revealing that these funds come from a pool of local commercial banks, Montas also said that, according to the government's estimates, the total, global debt within the electric sector represents nearly US$400 million.
A report in Diario Libre says, however, that the electric authorities have yet to sit down with the private power companies to discuss the renegotiation of their contracts or any measures to help them out of the crisis. The report says that this inaction is due to the fact that the government has nothing to offer in the way of resources until the fiscal reform package is ratified and the IMF Standby agreement resumed.
Currently connected to the national grid are Haina, Itabo, Metaldom, Union Fenosa, Seaboard, Puerto Plata Electric Company, Monte Rio, AES-Andres, and Cogentrix, but all are operating below capacity because of low fuel levels.
EDE-Este reported that their repair crews had restored 85% of the service that was knocked out by Tropical Storm Jeanne last week. The distributor estimates damages to transmission lines, sub-stations and poles to be in the range of RD$35 million. The EDEs reported that 655 poles were toppled over, 22 transformers were damaged, 43,000 meters of three-phase and 6,000 meters of single-phase wiring was brought down, and 12,000 meters of low-voltage wiring was damaged. Fifty-one crews from Ede-Este and 30 from the CDEEE worked around the clock to restore service.
A large area of Santo Domingo was without running water yesterday and the pervasive blackouts kept many people across the entire country without electricity for 20 consecutive hours. Generation stood at a mere 575 MW in the fact of the 1,700 MW demand. Hoy reports that for most of yesterday production met only one-third of the national demand. Like most of the water supply systems in the country, those that supply Santo Domingo depend on electric water pumps to move the water out to the customers. Yesterday, the authorities announced that 215 circuits on the national grid removed from service. Hundreds of thousands of clients were experiencing blackouts of 20 hours, and in Santo Domingo people are reporting electricity arriving for as few as fifteen minutes and, for the more fortunate, as long as two or three hours. In the north of the country, there was only 136.6 MW available to the consumers. By 6pm, production crept up to 889 MW at the start of the peak-demand hours. Distributors Ede-Norte and Ede-Sur told reporters that 385,000 of their clients were without electricity, and Ede-Este said they had disconnected 71 of the 159 circuits in their network. The problems with the power sector are financial, given the major debts the past administration left outstanding with suppliers.
Aristides Fernandez Zucco, the president of the Dominican Refinery (REFIDOMSA), guaranteed yesterday that a solution to the national propane supply problems was forthcoming. Fernandez Zucco said he had begun working on a plan that would increase the refinery's storage capacity, on the one hand, and provide more equipment to dispatch propane, on the other. At the same time, he announced the payment of RD$1.46 billion that the government owed the refinery as part of the propane subsidy. Obviously pleased, Fernandez Zucco furthermore announced the expected arrival of 38,000,000 gallons of LPG over the next six weeks. In order to make this happen, Fernandez said he had instructed his technicians to find alternative suppliers in order to keep reserve propane supplies permanently on hand and to have, at all times, a ship waiting to unload more of the gas that is used in most households for cooking and in many public transport vehicles. One of the solutions mentioned in the Listin Diario article is the possibility of obtaining barges that could be used as floating storage facilities, and thereby supply 60% of the local market that is assigned to the refinery.
As the litany of property held illegally by high-ranking officials of the Mejia administration continues to grow, the head of the Oficina Custodia de Bienes Incautados, the caretaker office of confiscated goods, Frank Matos, said that his officers have recovered 40 real estate properties, including villas, apartments, houses and farms, from the hands of former PRD authorities, including members of the National Police and the Armed Forces. Between 70 and 80 vehicles, mostly luxury cars, that were being used by people other than their owners, were also recovered. The Diario Libre says that Matos told them that the number of properties in the hands of former government officials or PRD politicians is three times the number recovered so far. The head of the department did not, however, reveal the names of those individuals from whom the confiscated properties were recovered. The reluctance to make their identities public has been the target of criticism by many in recent days.
Sociologist Ramon Tejada Holguin writes today in El Caribe that government programs that seek to merely identify the poor do not address the real root of the problem. He says that so far government policy has been based on how people perceive poverty, inequality and exclusion. He said that neoliberal policies that give predominance to market forces in the scheme of things, and only perpetuate the asymmetries that exist, while assuming that only those with access to economic resources will survive. He comments that international organizations find it sufficient to make inventories of the poor and define policies to provide relief to their suffering. He comments that this is not enough, and insists that the history of the inequal relation, identification of the social processes that lead to the structuring of these groups and the mechanisms that perpetuate and expand the social inequalities need to be observed. He explained that patronizing social policies that merely provide relief, leave untouched the machinery that produces and perpetuates poverty. "Better social policy should seek to combat the machinery that makes people poor, and we lack that at present," he concludes.
In an editorial today, Diario Libre newspaper corroborates the complaint raised by the civic society group Participacion Ciudadana that the government is not seeking savings by eliminating the more than 150,000 unnecessary public sector jobs. The newspaper says that the comment everywhere is that the number of appointments made by the new Fernandez administration in government offices is equal or surpasses the number of cancellations. The newspaper concludes that the national aspiration of savings in government by reducing the government payroll has been but an illusion. "The bitterness remains that it will be awhile before the political culture changes," comments newspaper editor Ines Aizpun. She mentions that reducing the payroll was one of the things that is in the government's control. "Simply there is no will or sufficient authority to impose austere budgets, and that was not what we had talked about," she writes. She admits that enough time has not passed for Dominicans to demand results from the new government, but sadly writes about the too many questionable government officers, too few new faces that suggest renewal, few concrete measures and electoral promises that do not look like they will be fulfilled...
Ex-President Hipolito Mejia holds assets of RD$46.5 million, according to his declaration, an amount that is RD$26.8 million more than when he took office four years ago.
As reported in El Caribe, Mejia presented his sworn declaration to the National Treasury, which was then sent to the attorney general's office. This procedure is in accordance with the law that requires all incoming and outgoing heads of state to declare their financial status.
The document submitted by Mejia indicates that the ex-President has RD$2.4 million in cash that is held in four bank accounts, including US funds equalling RD$287,460. In addition, Mejia acknowledged holding shares in nine companies whose collective value amounts to RD$780,300. As for non-liquid assets, the former President revealed real estate holdings worth RD$31,665,253, the most expensive of which are a 31-tarea property in Santiago worth RD$9.3 million, a country home in Jarabacoa he valued at RD$6.75 million and his residence in San Cristobal that he says is worth RD$4.25 million. Mejia furthermore declared two "jeepetas" worth RD$5.7 million and RD$2.6 million in furnishings and equipment. His statement included a liability of RD$4.5 million in the form of a loan owed to his son.
Dozens of Dominicans have been rescued from the Cayman Islands by Dominican Air Force planes that mounted the airlift operation from Jamaica. The British islands, where some 500 DR citizens reside and work as mechanics, technicians and domestic help, were nearly destroyed by Hurricane Ivan earlier this month. Tears, hugs and kisses marked the arrival of the refugees at the San Isidro Airbase. Maridalia Pena waited for her grandson Roilin Nicholson, 7, and gave thanks to God that he was returned home safely. The boy's father operated a garage on Grand Cayman. Celeste Duran, a 17-year resident of Grand Cayman, arrived with her son. She was employed in a government office that was destroyed, and her boss told her to come back in January. All the schools are closed and are similarly scheduled to re-open in January. Reports from the refugees, all of whose houses were either damaged or destroyed, tell of a 95% destruction of the island. Before dawn yesterday, the Dominican Air Force dispatched an aircraft loaded with 500 food rations. According to reports in El Caribe, the battered islands have been left with little food, no water and no electricity after Ivan made its way directly through. The Dominican AirForce used three of its transports to evacuate the refugees. According to the Dominican ambassador in Jamaica, there are still 54 Dominicans awaiting their trip home.
It takes 45 minutes to travel from the roundabout on Hermanas Mirabal to Nicolas de Ovando and 30 minutes to get from the Alcarrizos to Kilometer 9 of the Duarte Highway. On the San Vicente de Paul to the bridge of La 17, it will take patience and 25 minutes of your time. Crossing the Juan Bosch Bridge will add 30 minutes to your morning commute. While observers blame poor infrastructure and planning, the closure of the pontoon bridge over the Ozama River and the near-total closure of the Duarte Bridge are in large part responsible the problem. El Caribe shows the kilometric jams on each of these major thoroughfares. Besides the reduced access to bridges, the failure to synchronize more than 3,000 traffic lights combined with the rampant electric shortage are huge contributing factors. According to Angel Segura, the Transit Department head for the National District, the creation of 174 new bus routes also complicates things, since the buses do not have any fixed points to pick up passengers or special bus stops that do not tie up traffic. According to his estimates, there are 550,000 vehicles trying to move about Santo Domingo at any given time.
AMET, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, only has 400 officers for each 10-12 hour shift, both day and evening.
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 1996-2008. DR1. All Rights Reserved.