The debate on the Metro for Santo Domingo is open, and for the past few days it seems that everyone that is interested in the project is either getting on or getting off, with some people motivated by personal interests and others by a concern for the city. Lawyer Francisco Alvarez Valdez writes in El Caribe that the project could take advantage of the good public opinion that the current government is enjoying, a feeling that the crisis is ending and we are moving back from the abyss. At one time there were estimates that the peso would be at 100 to one today and that the quasi-fiscal deficit of the Central Bank would drown us all without shedding a tear. The government deserves the praise, according to Alvarez, starting with the CB governor Hector Valdez Albizu. Because of the excellent work by the government’s economic team, one would be tempted to give a vote of confidence regarding the Metro, above all, because it would be very useful and a benefit poor workers, according to its promoters. However, he points out, this would be turning our backs on our reality. He mentions the statement made by the governor of the Central Bank Hector Valdez Albizu who emphasized that while the IMF agreement does not prohibit such a project, or any other project as long as the government does not exceed a certain limit, the government is obliged to prioritize its expenditures. Alvarez says that as a poor nation “we always have been (prioritizing), but now the obligation is even greater since we are not yet out of the crisis.”
When some commentators say that those who ride in comfortable vehicles do not know about the hardships the pedestrian poor have to suffer trying to get to their places of work, they look at just one part of the issue, and not the most important one. These same pedestrian poor, for which the Metro is being designed also suffer, for the most part, from a lack of education and adequate health coverage. The lack of education is responsible for the low wages they earn or for even their lacking of a job. The Metro will take them swiftly to the public hospitals only to find out that they cannot be attended to because of a lack of medicine and equipment. Putting people on an air-conditioned subway, according to Alvarez, will not erase their basic needs. And, things will just get worse, since there won’t be any money available to invest in education and health because the Metro will need it all. The final point is this: The country would have enough resources for education and health and perhaps even for the Metro if it were to rescue at least a part of the thirty billion pesos that President Fernandez denounced as lost through government corruption.