I call bull /Mentida !!, Baric paid 400 million US or 16 billion pesos + in 2014
to the DR government....
Where do you think all the new schools and high ways come from...
Barrick paga $US400 millones al Estado -
The Danilo administration forced Barrick to renegotiate and now a huge percentage of what they export has to be paid to the government in cash. The reason for the renegotiation was that the congressmen and senators originally approved Barrick's proposition
without reading the bill. Then investigative journalist began to peruse the bill and they discovered that the politicians had approved that Barrick can keep practically everything they could mined. Then it was discovered that a study of the gold mine in Pueblo Viejo (near Cotui) is estimated to have more than US$60 billion worth in gold.
Also relatively recently a new massive deposit of gold was found in the Cordillera Central near San Juan de la Maguana. Some other company, I think its Canadian too, will begin the mine to exploit those deposits too.
The rumor mill has been spreading that the DR mow has the 2nd largest proven gold deposits in America. Its kind of ironic that 400 years after the Spanish decided all the (easy) gold had been mined, that Columbus' assertion that the island was full of gold (he based his comment on what the Indians told him of the Cibao gold region), that now Columbus is proven right. Its mostly the Cordillera Central that has much of the gold, and guess what? What the Taino's called the Cibao was not the valley that today has its name, but rather the mountains of the Cordillera Central.
As it is right now, gold exports make up a quarter of all of DR's exports and it has been only like one or two years since they truly started to export the stuff.