Santo Domingo. – The Fortis Bank S.A. of Brussels will lend US$19 million to build the first stage of the dam at Monte Grande (west), as stipulate in an agreement signed by Treasury minister Vicente Bengoa, bank representative Michel Froidebise, as well as the executive Juan Carlos Goyenechea, of Fortis’ office in Mexico.

The project, to be built by be the agency in charge of dams and channels, Indrhi, is designed to irrigate more than 44,000 hectares in the southwest and provide potable water the zone’s aqueducts.

In a statement to the press Bengoa said the work will also generate electricity and halt the region’s yearly and frequent floods.

The agreement specifies that the Government conducted all the necessary procedures for the credit’s valid and binding formalization and specifically the approval by Congress.

Bengoa the stressed the project’s importance to boost the nation’s economy and future development, noting that it would become a fundamental thrust for progress in one of the country’s most impoverished regions.

And despite continuous demands by region representatives to start the project, president Leonel Fernandez halted it amid a probe into the terms of tender offers for its construction, in the wake of a scandal involving former Indrhi director hector Rodriguez Pimentel.