A report in Diario Libre questions the wisdom of highway concessions as a model and points to the higher cost of the Samana toll road due to minimum revenue levels guaranteed by the government to contractors. Built to facilitate the connection of the capital with the cities of Nagua, Sanchez and Samana, as well as to boost tourism in the area, the John Paul II highway that links Santo Domingo with Samana saw a considerable drop off in vehicular flow in 2012, to the extent that the State had to pay the concessionaires a subsidy of RD$1.84 billion.
The road was built by Colombian company Autopista del Nordeste, which also has a 30-year contract for administration of the tollbooths. The company pointed to a clause in the contract that refers to the Minimum Guaranteed Income in order to cover the deficit that resulted from the reduction in the estimated flow of vehicles. Even though neither the Ministry of Public Works nor the company made it clear what the threshold amount was for vehicle circulation, the estimated annual traffic on the was set at 839,500 vehicles.
The executive president of Autopista del Nordeste, Ana Maria Rosario, admitted that there was a steep reduction in traffic along the road, which she justified in part as due to the decline in the number of tourists in the Samana area. She recalled that the project was covered totally by the company, and that they did not use any state money. “This highway was built within the framework of national development which was aimed at achieving the development of the province of Samana as a tourist spot, unfortunately, with the international crisis and the crisis in the European markets, tourists stopped coming and at the airport in Catey, which was one of the infrastructures that they built, there is currently only one flight a week,” she stated.