During his visit to the Santiago area yesterday, President Leonel Fernández told reporters that he himself issued the order to the move the airport facilities at Herrera to a new one in Higüero, north of Santo Domingo near the city dump Duquesa. As such, he said, it is an irreversible decision. Yesterday a session of the Chamber of Deputies had to be suspended when rancorous debate erupted over a draft resolution proposed by two Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) Deputies calling on the Fernández government to suspend work on the Higüero site. One of the sponsors, Deputy Andrés Mato, said he offered the bill because no plans existed for the new airport, the existing site had never been as dangerous as some now wished to portray it, and the cost of the project would actually be four times that claimed by the government (i.e., RD$800 million) and thus insupportable under the existing national budget. He tried to get the resolution voted on by the plenary without first having to be submitted to a committee for study, but that motion was narrowly defeated. Also yesterday two contenders for the PRD nomination for president in the year 2000 elections, Hipólito Mejía and Hatuey Decamps, called on the government to halt work on the Higüero site until a consensus supporting the airport move could be worked out between all interested parties.
