PLD deputies acted against the dividing up of the National District into three provinces and a National District (city of Santo Domingo at the Chamber of Deputies yesterday. The PLD opposes the bill sent by the Executive Branch on grounds it would only mean more government spending for the creation of the new departments without resolving the problems. The bill has the support of Chamber of Deputies president, Rafaela Alburquerque who said she would reintroduce the bill as No. 1 item on today’s agenda. Advocates of the bill say that the decentralizing of the National District into provinces would improve services. Nevertheless, the Association for the Development of the East Side of Santo Domingo (ADESA), an area that would become a new province, opposes the bill. Van Elder Espinal Martinez, president of Adesa said, “The solution of the problems of the National District cannot be an increase in bureaucracy, of which there is already an excess and it is inefficient.” “The country cannot continue to propitiate irrational growth of the state political structure, because it will end up affecting all of us when the resources for investment become everyday more scarce,” he said.
