Santo Domingo. - The company which builds the cement plant in the area of Los Haitises National Park will pay US$3.50 per tarea (628 square meters) every year (83,373 dollars per year), while the head of a major ecological organization affirms having been deceived when invited to the project’s groundbreaking in the guise of “a reforestation project.”

The contract stipulates that the company “Consorcio Minero Dominicano, S.A., is committed to pay for the right to rent is granted via the present contract the sum of US$3.50 per tarea, paid annually, in advance and stipulating the payment of the first year of rental 2008-2009, on the date of the signature of this action.”

The contract signed between the Dominican Government’s Sugar Council (CEA) director Enrique Martinez, and Consorcio Minero Dominicano president Manuel de Jesus Estrella encompasses three portions totaling around 17 million meters square, and grants the company the right to buy the land.

Meanwhile, the president of the prestigious environmental group Cibao Ecological Society (Soeci), Eduardo Rodríguez, on Monday affirmed that his organization had been invited to the project’s groundbreaking, but in the guise of “a reforestation project.”

And the director of the Community Development Agency (DGSC) Luis Acosta Moreta “El Gallo,” yesterday became the first senior Government official to oppose the project, calling it a “stab in the back” to environmental conservation. “The construction of the project (cement plant) in Los Haitises or its zone of influence, will be a stab in the back to the nation’s ecological protection.”