News commentator, Juan Bolivar Diaz, in an analysis in Hoy newspaper on Saturday, 12 February, comments that the proposed Santo Domingo metro will cost much more than the US$327 million figure being used. Diaz speculates that President Fernandez may seek to go down in history as the builder of a great public work, joining Nicolas de Ovando, Trujillo and Balaguer. But Diaz concludes that the financial hole that the metro would create would have too high a political cost. He says that sources indicate that the government has made up its mind already, and is just seeking to measure the level of public opposition.
Diaz speculates that the metro could be the downfall of the new Fernandez administration, by concentrating the investment and paralyzing around 2,000 small public works citizens are interested in nationwide. President Leonel Fernandez is on tour of the nation promising public works where he visits, reportedly to reduce opposition to the metro. One of the reasons the PLD was ousted from government in 2000 was the population considered he had over-invested in Santo Domingo’s overpasses and tunnels that drained the national budget.
Veteran urban planner and architect Rafael Tomas Hernandez alerted last
week that the metro would not immortalize President Leonel Fernandez as
a great builder, more likely it would mean his political downfall.