Over the past year or so, President Danilo Medina has made a series of surprise visits – or at least visits without a lot of fanfare n to remote parts of the Dominican Republic. The border region, his native San Juan de la Maguana, the Cibao, and the east have all seen the small, three-car presidential convoy arrive unexpectedly and the informally dressed President get out and talk to the people. In many cases, beside the anecdotes of the President asking a Police private if he could use the bathroom in a dilapidated station house in the east, Medina has promised credits to farmers’ associations, to women’s cooperatives, micro businesses and other small-scale enterprises. After this first year, there are some results. While the list of beneficiaries in provinces such as Espaillat (Moca), Sanchez Ramirez (Cotui), Santiago Rodriguez and Monsignor Nouel (Bonao) may be long, the testimony by some of these beneficiaries is interesting.
Listin Diario reports that a spokesman for a cooperative in Zafaraya, Moca, says that the financing provided by the President “has permitted us to make investments that assure us a significant increase in the production of vegetables both in hothouses as well as out in the open: cassava for export, sweet potatoes, plantains and other items, as well as expanding and modernizing our installations.”