El Caribe opinion columnist Manuel Quiterio Cedeno, writes about the city of Higuey which will soon celebrate the 500th anniversary of its foundation. The writer complains that the city had never received adequate attention from the government until 1984 when the international airport was built and tourism started to develop in La Altagracia Province. A community of 21,000 with a depressed economy, Higuey went on to become a city of 141,000 with practically no unemployment and with enormous development perspectives. La Altagracia became the third most prosperous province in the country thanks to its natural resources and local and foreign investment. The government, however, has only bothered to collect taxes. Now a new tax of US$5 per tourist is supposed to be invested in the infrastructure of tourist zones. The budget of the first group of projects that has been approved is UD$76 million. But even though La Altagracia province will produce half of those resources, it will only receive the investment of US$3 million in infrastructure. Quiterio states that the province has as many problems as any other tourist zone and proposes that it should struggle to become an autonomous region and manage its own resources and taxes, thus avoiding the irresponsibility and blindness of the central government which is taking away its opportunities for progress.