The political clout of the transportation union leaders is in the headlines again this week, as Oneximo Gonzalez, director of the Metropolitan Transport Authority, lashes out at union leaders. El Caribe carried a report today that President Hipolito Mejia authorized a RD$49.9 million payment to unions that handed in rickety buses and received leases for 300 new buses, operated by the Metropolitan Transport Organization (OMSA). The Fernandez government had already paid RD$73.7 million to the unions that control city transit routes and are the first to threaten to go on strike if their demands are not met. According to El Caribe’s story today, the unions are Cooperativa de Transporte El Sol, Expreso (Victor Fernandez), Union de Propietarios de Autobuses (Freddy Mendez, Jose Flores, Isidro Maria Santana), Cooperativa de Transporte Rio Ozama (Juan Hubieres), Cooperativa de Transporte Lin, Expreso 27 de Febrero (Francisco Mojica). Oneximo Gonzalez of AMET said that he hopes this will be “the last payment of tolls on blackmail.” In a written note to El Caribe newspaper on 6 August, the director of AMET said the government’s debt to the six unions is irregular and was made without the transporters having to buy even a screw, nor pay a penny for the new units. The extortion that plagues Dominican city transit is described by Hamlet Hermann, first director of AMET, in his book, “Para Vencer el Caos.” (To Defeat Chaos).
