Ten percent of the of the 800 builders’ merchants in the country went out of business in 1995. This news was published in the newspaper Hoy which adds that “1995 was considered a critical period for stores that sold items for the construction industry, such as cement, paint, nails, wood, steel, etc. Mr. Bienvenido Santana, an executive of the Asociacion Dominicana de Ferreteros, explained that “as the government did not pay its contractors, we were seriously affected.”