President Mejia said on Monday that it is not true that public works have stopped due to budgetary constraints. But the Listin Diario newspaper reaffirms today that construction is not advancing on several major public works. The paper reports that the 56-km. Autovia del Este, the central library of the state university (UASD) and the Juan Pablo Duarte bridge works are indeed paralyzed due to lack of funds to pay the contractors. And of the 28 firms that are contracted to complete the Supreme Court of Justice, only two are working because the Ministry of Public Works has not been paying them since September. News reports attribute the lull to the hiring binge the government went on expecting a windfall from the new tax laws. Instead, the new taxes further constrained the economy, and the money didn’t come in as expected. As the new personnel could not be fired, disbursements for public works have been significantly reduced and in many cases totally paralyzed.
