Father Manuel Antonio Ruiz continues to battle against the government concession to Tokio Motors, an importer of used motorcycles and refrigerators from Japan, of 30,000 meters adjacent to the vocational school the church is building in the area. Supposedly, the entire area is a protected area where constructions should not have been permitted at all. Father Ruiz’s parish benefited from the approval by the past administration of an extension of 10,000 square meters to build a vocational school. News reports say the donation was agreed upon supposedly between the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo and the Department of Parks during the Leonel Fernández Administration, but apparently there is nothing legal about this either. El Siglo newspaper said that President Mejia has ordered the legal consultant of the Executive Branch to prepare the documentation to make formal the donation of the area to the Catholic priest for the Movearte school. This would regularize the situation of the school. Defending his stand, Father Ruiz has presented a legal suit for fraud against the state versus the administrative secretary of the Presidency and the administrator of Bienes Nacionales for permitting the illegal takeover of the lands adjacent to those he has claimed. News reports indicate that the lands were assigned to Tokio Motors by the past administration to pay a debt of RD$10 million for power plants sold by the company for use in public hospitals following Hurricane Georges. According to the Ministry of Public Health there is no contract, agreement or negotiation that substantiates this debt. El Siglo newspaper did publish a letter from the Minister of Public Health Juan Octavio Ceballos where in 1999 he requests a credit from the Department of Customs for the amount of RD$10,074,600 for the power plants. The Ministry of Environment is against the takeover of the area by Tokio Motors. President Hipólito Mejía has nevertheless given his go ahead to the transaction. There has been no opposition to the school built by the church parish. A meeting is set for Monday, 8 January with Father Ruiz, the Mayor of Santo Domingo, Ministry of Environments to define the situation.
