Jose Luis Chavez

By Luis Jose Chavez

More than four years after she was announced the reconstruction of the square of Guibia on the Malecon of Santo Domingo, National District City Council has built a new fence for protection in the area prior to beginning the work or remove the rubble of demolished facilities .

The zinc fence was originally installed by the administration of Roberto Salcedo to hide the dilapidated state of the square, was old and had to be renewed before the work began. Four budgets for a total of 15 billion pesos have been insufficient to rebuild a project that once cost just one million 400 thousand pesos.

For the benefit of Salcedo would think that despite the public commitment to rebuild the square Guibia not had the foresight to allocate the necessary funds in the budgets of 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, which would be an act of incompetence inconceivable to a trustee who has handled more than the total resources administered by all previous trustees from the Era of Trujillo. But if budgeted funds and could not run, then it would be a typical act of administrative malfeasance in complicity with the authorities responsible for overseeing or punish such crimes.

In early 2006, Mayor Roberto Salcedo ordered the eviction of traders operating in the square and soon after ordered the demolition of all kiosks and games, claiming that the area was arrabalizada.

The Guibia Square, built in 1986 for the municipal administration of Dr. José Francisco was over 20 years the main public space for family recreation in the National District. Since 2002, when management began Salcedo, the City failed to provide maintenance and four years later officially declared arrabalizada, with notable signs of neglect and dirt and all playground equipment out of service.

It was the same excuse I use the Mayor when he tried to turn the square into a heliport Omar Torrijos, on the occasion said that the plaza was arrabalizada Omar Torrijos and that at the time the eviction business the sale of food and alcoholic beverages, the brigades Hall found hundreds of used condoms and trash. He forgot that he already had more than four years at the Town Hall.

The policy of closing public spaces "for desarrabalizar" has been applied also in the case of Eugenio Maria de Hostos Park, the main center of events and trade shows of the Malecon, trellis and abandoned two years ago with the promise that it will be rebuilt .

Apparently neither citizens nor the opposition parties represented in the District Council, know the reasons why the administration of Salcedo was unable to run the main projects announced in recent years, despite what the law 176-07 necessary to devote 40 percent of their income to the construction of municipal interest.

In 2009 Sans Souci Tourism Investment invested 90 million pesos in the reconstruction of the Plaza Juan Baron, but the Malecon of Santo Domingo still has a state of neglect, much like the scenario described by journalist Mary Esther Campusano in a report published by the Listin Diario on January 7, 2007:

"El Malecon of Santo Domingo is one of the most important roads in the city. But the splendor of yesteryear is gone. It is no longer seen as a magnet for tourists and communes: it has become a focus of dirt, drugs, free sex, makeshift parking lots, a place with low light and more than enough empty spaces that serve as housing for homeless and unhappy. "

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