NewsWhore
12-07-2009, 04:10 PM
Former Central Bank governor Carlos Despradel believes we have gone nuts in the DR. "One only has to look at the unprecedented Quisqueya Ball Park residential, tourism and sports project that the National Housing Bank (BNV) plans to finance with an international loan of US$105 million that is directly or indirectly guaranteed by the Dominican government. It will have to be paid eventually with taxpayer money because it will be very difficult for the project to be profitable, given its nature".
He recalls how the government backed several productive projects with international funding from multilateral institutions between the 1960s and 1980s, lent out through bodies known as FIDE and INFRATUR. He says it is regrettable that funds from these two have now been moved to the BNV, which he says is dedicated to directly finance projects whose contribution to the economic development of the country is "questionable." On the issue of the US$105 million for the Quisqueya Ball Park residential, tourism and sports project, he comments: "While it is a private initiative, what is unheard of is that it is being financed with Dominican government resources, in a country where there are so many urgent and unfulfilled needs (including low-cost housing) to which BNV loans should be going to and not to "finance pharaonic whims of some promoters."
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)
He recalls how the government backed several productive projects with international funding from multilateral institutions between the 1960s and 1980s, lent out through bodies known as FIDE and INFRATUR. He says it is regrettable that funds from these two have now been moved to the BNV, which he says is dedicated to directly finance projects whose contribution to the economic development of the country is "questionable." On the issue of the US$105 million for the Quisqueya Ball Park residential, tourism and sports project, he comments: "While it is a private initiative, what is unheard of is that it is being financed with Dominican government resources, in a country where there are so many urgent and unfulfilled needs (including low-cost housing) to which BNV loans should be going to and not to "finance pharaonic whims of some promoters."
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)