A report in Listin Diario today reminds Dominicans of the excessive cost of the toll roads from Santo Domingo to Las Terrenas, Samana. The roads were negotiated in the administration of former President Leonel Fernandez. Then Minister of Public Works Victor Diaz Rua signed for the Dominican government. Díaz Rúa is standing trial in the ongoing Odebrecht corruption bribes case.
The story in Listin Diario on 14 December 2020 explains that by 2021 the government will have paid the cost of the road. That is in the first 10 years of the 30-year contract. Yet, since the Ministry of Public Works signed a 30-year contract, taxpayers will have to continue paying excessive overcharges for another 20 years. It costs around RD$2,000 in tolls to vacation in Samana, compared to RD$300 for Punta Cana, a similar distance. The development of Samana has suffered due to the high cost of tolls.
The Autopista Juan Pablo II and the Boulevard Turístico del Atlántico were a concession to a Colombian company with the backing of the World Bank. They were assessed at US$305 million. As reported, for the period 2012-2019, the Dominican government paid RD$16,419 million to the Colombian company. This is equivalent to more than US$282 million.
Of the total, the Dominican government has already disbursed around RD$19.09 billion in “shadow toll” payments to the Autopista del Nordeste consortium, the builders.
The highway construction contract establishes that the company in charge of their construction and administration, the so-called Autopista del Nordeste, S.A., would directly finance 80% of the total cost of the work, in exchange for being able to collect 100% of the tolls on both routes for 30 uninterrupted years.
A so-called “shadow toll” kicks in when vehicular travel does not meet the projections established in the contract. It seems now that the projections were excessively optimistic. The Dominican government then needs to compensate the company to comply with the guaranteed minimum established in the contract.
According to the “Fiscal Autopsy” report, prepared by Oxfam in 2019, the state paid the private company double its investment in the first eight years of highway operation. There are still 19 years of concession left for the contract to come to an end and up to now, the Colombian company has earned more than US$328 million from the Dominican state, which exceeds the investment of private capital by more than US$23 million, as reported in Listin Diario.
No government has been able to amend the contract.
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
Autopistas del Nordeste
14 December 2020