Writing in today’s edition of El Dia newspaper, Friday 19 October, lawyer Carlos Salcedo gives the new name of “Backward Towers” to the “Progress Towers” built by the Fernandez administration and allocated to selected individuals below market prices.
In his comment on the enormous fiscal deficit the Medina administration has inherited, he says that when considering what generated the hole, questions need to be asked whether it was for expenditures in line with national development.
He then asks “how many modest apartments could have been built at the same cost as Torres El Progreso? Who are the beneficiaries of the state generosity? Although Art. 59 of the Constitution says the state should guarantee decent housing where families can live in peace, security and with dignity, providing luxury apartments to people who already have homes is not the responsibility of the state. Salcedo says that with the resources spent to build those apartments, thousands of families could have received decent housing. “Leonel Fernandez and Alma Fernandez, responsible for the project, need to reveal the constitutional base that supported diverting so many public resources to people who already had their own homes and who did not need government assistance,” he writes.
Earlier this week, Waldys Taveras, a city councilor for the opposition PRD party, says that the builders of the towers should pay RD$22.5 million in taxes they were exempted to payto the city government because the project does not quality for being a social interest project.
http://eldia.com.do/columnas/2012/10/18/96930/Torres-El-atraso
http://www.acento.com.do/index.php/news/22365/71/Torres-EL-PROGRESO-por-dentro.html
http://www.hoy.com.do/el-pais/2012/10/16/450892/Regidor-exige-ADN-cobre-225-MM-torres-El-Progreso
http://desdelarepublicadominicana.blogspot.com/2012/10/desde-ya-comercializan-con-las-torres.html
http://desdelarepublicadominicana.blogspot.com/2012/10/apartamentos-el-progreso-con-valor.html