Senator Jose Tomas Perez (PLD-Santo Domingo) suggested that President Leonel Fernandez consult the PLD party before embarking the government on the metro mega project. The government has budgeted US$20 million for the studies to start the construction this year. He argues that the President should consult the party because assigning priority to this work could have immediate political consequences for the PLD, especially during these difficult economic times. President Fernandez is also the president of the PLD.
Perez believes that the metro should be postponed for when the government is in better economic conditions. “In a time of crisis, as at present, with a foreign debt of US$8 billion, with the country mortgaged, with a quasi-fiscal debt of RD$100 billion and an agreement with the IMF that significantly reduces the maneuvering capacity of the government to satisfy the demands of the population, I do not think that the construction of the metro of Santo Domingo can be a priority,” he said, as reported in the Listin Diario.
President Leonel Fernandez has said that the worst is over. But the Santo Domingo senator says that the government would be giving the opposition an effective tool for criticizing it. The PRD could argue then that if the Mejia government left the country in such bad economic terms, how come in only six months things have been turned around to afford the luxury of building a metro?
Perez feels that the government should instead concentrate its resources on resolving the crisis inherited from the previous government.
The secretary general of the PLD, Reynaldo Pared Perez says that the metro was presented to the majority of the PLD political committee, as 15 of its 22 members sit on the Government Council that gave its go ahead to the project. He said that it is up to President Fernandez to convene the party to discuss the metro.