SANTO DOMINGO.- The companies which sell fireworks grouped in Anepa yesterday blamed Interior and Police minister Franklin Almeyda of violating the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., of lying to the country about decree 616, which regulates the production, import, sales and use of fireworks, with the ban to sell them, and showed a permit to import them issued by the Armed Forces, which expires next year.

Fireworks importers spokesman Francisco Xavier said by prohibiting the sale of  fireworks, the official violates the DR-CAFTA, because all imported fireworks are made in the U.S. "How is it possible that a minister can violate the free trade agreement with the United States, he allows the products to be brought, that the taxes are paid and then says that those products are going to left in the warehouse."

He said decree 616 doesn’t prohibit their sale, but instead orders the creation of norms to regulate their use.

He said importers would lose millions with Almeyda’s “unilateral” decision and would affect more than 100,000 people who make a living by selling fireworks in the holiday period.

The measure, "stimulates the firing of gunshots to the air the 24th and 31st of December and the clandestine manufacture of those devices, placing the people who use them in danger," Xavier said.