2008 – Page 23

Rafael Serrano, sub-director of the Transport Reorganization Office (OPRET), has announced that the Metro would open to the public sometime in December. Serrano made the announcement at the close of a training program for 134 of the more than 400-person Metro security staff. He expressed optimism that the Metro will run in time for Dominicans …

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The Senate has approved, after two consecutive sessions, a bill submitted by the Executive Branch to increase the budget deficit by RD$10.8 billion. The increased deficit, which includes loans, would be used to stabilize the nation’s failing electric sector. During the urgent sessions, senators approved a motion favoring government intervention on behalf of 1,000 Falconbridge …

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Economist Henri Hebrard says that if the exchange rate hovers around RD$37 to US$1 as projected by the government in the National Budget figures, Dominicans receiving remittances from abroad will reap an additional RD$6.76 billion. He forecast nonetheless that remittances would decline in the last quarter of 2008 and the decline would continue for most …

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Cemex Dominicana is predicting a 16% decline in cement sales for 2009, as local construction slows down. The company forecasts that local demand for cement will decline from 3,441 metric tons to 2,879 metric tons, as reported in Diario Libre. Cemex Dominicana president Carlos Jacks told reporters that the global financial crisis that started with …

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Observers initially welcomed the DR-CAFTA trade agreement with the US and Central America with optimism, but according to Miguel Angel Olivo, president of the Dominican Pig Farmers Federation and spokesman for the farming competitiveness movement, statistics from the US Department of Commerce indicate that between January and June 2008 pork imports (from the US to …

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Farmers at Los Haitises National Park are not happy with the joint decision by Environment Minister Jaime David Fernandez and Armed Forces Minister Pedro Rafael Pena to post 1,200 military personnel in the park to continue evicting squatters and farmers. The farmers say the government’s decisions are arbitrary and abusive and are angry at not …

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The Transit Authority (AMET) has announced the confiscation of 2,350 vehicles whose owners failed to purchase their marbete stickers. The deadline was last Friday. As of last week the Tax Department (DGII) said 100,000 drivers had failed to get the sticker. The penalty is RD$1,200 for cars 2003 or earlier or RD$2,200 for 2004 and …

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The Attorney General’s office and the Ministry of Interior & Police don’t seem to agree on the details of the holiday gun ban resolution. Yesterday Attorney General Radhames Jimenez Pena warned that any officer caught illegally impounding a gun would be dismissed, while adding that he supported the measure. Jimenez, however, voiced a different opinion …

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A bi-cameral Congressional committee is studying the possibility of increasing the taxes on credit card transactions, gun permits and fireworks in order to cover the cost of increasing doctors’ and nurses’ pay. Listin Diario reports that government needs to come up with an annual extra RD$3 billion to cover the wage increase. Subsidies in the …

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Jose Manuel Vargas, president of the Dominican Health Risk Administrators Association (ADARS) says that it is not financially feasible to include AIDS patients in the social security program because this would entail an estimated annual cost of RD$315,000 per person. He estimates that if 80,000 AIDS patients were integrated into the system that would total …

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