The government has made budgetary provision for DR participation in the Olympic Games, to be held in Sydney, Australia next August, and in the Pan American Games, to be hosted by SD in 2002. The Olympic Committee’s chairman, Jose Joaquin Puello announced that in "an agreeable conversation, the president guaranteed the resources not only for the Sydney games," but for the Pan American Games as well. This month, the Olympic Games Committee will receive DR$8.2 million (around US$512 thousand) and the Pan American project will receive DR$9.5 million (around US$593 thousand). Similar suns will be granted in each month up to the final one prior to each event, said Puello. But with Fernandez leaving office in August, such continuing appropriations are by no means assured. Writing in Listin Diario, sports columnist Hugo Lopez Morrobel reflected that such "significant support must be maintained by the next government." But he also recalled that "there have been innumerable projects begun by governments, and when another government takes power they’re immediately abandoned."
