Over the long weekend, the papers were filled with political statements from all three major parties. President Mejia’s speech was fully analyzed, criticized and praised, according to the political tendency of each politician. Perhaps the most important news of the weekend, however, had to do with automobiles, and Hoy, El Caribe and the Listin Diario each contributed an interesting piece. For example, Hoy published an article by Fausto Adames that showed that the Dominican government and private individuals were the largest importers of vehicles during over the past two years. In 2002, government officials and private citizens imported a total of 36,498 vehicles, while new car dealers imported 26,834 and used car dealers imported 21,415 vehicles. The numbers for 2003 showed that government officials and private citizens brought 9,977 units into the country, while new and used card dealers imported 7,679 and 7,747 vehicles respectively. According to Adames, the auto sales sector has been one of the most seriously affected segments of the economy due to the crisis in the exchange market. Besides the drastic fall in sales, budgeted income for the customs department fell far short of estimates. The 2003 budget called for RD$7 billion to enter the customs coffers, but only RD$1.3 billion were reported. Meanwhile, the Listin Diario reported that auto theft has become a growth industry in the Dominican Republic. Yaniris Felipe wrote in the El Dinero section of the paper: “Be careful! In any parking lot, carport or around the corner, the car thieves are watching.” According to Felipe, car theft has ceased to be an occasional crime, but more of a criminal industry on wheels representing vast earnings to organized crime. According to the Dominican Chamber of Insurers and Reinsurers (CADOAR), there were 503 auto thefts in 2003, of which only 90 were recovered. These numbers do not inlcude vehicles that were not insured for robbery or that went unreported. According to Felipe, many of the vehicles are sent to Haiti for resale, while others are sent to “chopshops,” where they are disassembled and sold part by part. Simon Mahfoud Miguel, spokesperson for ACDOAR, said that his organization had information of vehicles that were stolen in the Dominican Republic and later located in Haiti, but attempts to get the Haitian authorities to act had, so far, been ineffective. The last article that dealt with automobiles was in the first section of Sunday’s El Caribe. Written by Yulendys Jorge, Isabel Guzman and Ruddy Dotel Paulino, the article demonstrates the poor condition of the Duarte Highway between Santiago and Santiago. The writers point out 25 danger points along the roadway, a result, according to them, of shoddy maintenance and “structural deficiencies.”
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