2008 – Page 121

Rains caused by Hurricane Gustav led to flooding on many of Santo Domingo’s main roads yesterday. Flooding made traffic unbearable and the lack of public transport made getting home a nightmare for hundreds of Dominicans. Flooding was reported on 27 de Febrero, Nunez de Caceres, George Washington, John F. Kennedy and 30 de Mayo Avenues. …

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President Leonel Fernandez enjoyed watching the bout of Dominican boxer Felix Diaz versus Thailand’s Manus Boonjumnong at his home in Naco. As soon as Diaz won a gold medal in the Beijing Olympics, he told reporters he ordered the streets of Diaz’s Santo Domingo barrio, Sabana Perdida, to be paved as soon as possible in …

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Civil society groups, lawyers, sports and neighborhood watch organizations are calling on the government to re-structure existing crime prevention and crime fighting programs in order to genuinely combat the evil. Servio Tulio Castanos, vice-president of the Institutionalism and Justice Foundation (Finjus), former prosecutor Virgilio Bello Rosa, community leaders Luis Suliz, Johnny Peguero and Pedro Urena …

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Despite the fact that foreign investment in the Dominican Republic has increased over the past few years, this could have grown even more if there were better judicial guarantees and less red tape. Both issues, combined with the lack of reliability and reasonable pricing of electricity, place the country at a disadvantage compared to other …

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President Leonel Fernandez retired 217 National Police officers last Sunday. Among those sent to retirement are 71 colonels, 58 lieutenant colonels and 88 majors. The officers were retired in accordance with Institutional Law 96-04.

Industrialists from Haina feel that the monetary measures adopted up until now have reached their limit. They argue that the government now needs to reduce public spending. The president and spokesman for the Haina Industrial Association, Rafael Alvarez Crespo, said that if the government wants to maintain macro-economic stability it will have to create a …

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The Minister of Public Works, Victor Diaz Rua, attributes the potholes in the Las Americas Highway to the failure of the Codacsa Company to maintain the roadway in a proper fashion. Codacsa is the concession-holder for the toll road between Santo Domingo and La Romana. According to the minister, Codacsa “has collected more than a …

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About 35% of electricity consumers do not get billed by the Electricity Distributors (Edes), according to a study released by the Dominican Corporation of State-owned Electricity Companies CDEEE). The study shows that the losses in the areas do not belong to the Program for the Reduction of Blackouts (PRA), which reached 47.17%, about 7% more …

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Efforts by the Fernandez administration to provide reliable and competitively priced electricity have failed. Blackouts are back, causing major inconveniences and raising the cost of doing business in the DR. Companies can no longer cope with using their back-up power generators because the rising cost of diesel has made operating them too expensive. The costs …

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The sale of living quarters, single-family houses, condominiums and apartments has fallen by 70% this year over last. Meanwhile, construction has tailed off by a 30% to 40% margin in 2008. According to Listin Diario, the cost of construction materials used in housing construction increased by 17.5% from January to August, according to statistics from …

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