Vargas Maldonado Assures Village Cost 4 Million Dollars

The Dominican government has invested between 3.5 and 4 million dollars in the building of the Pan American Village, which will host the more than five thousand athletes that will participate in the XIV Pan American Games to be held here, assured the Secretary of Public Works, engineer Miguel Vargas Maldonado. 

“When we arrived to the Public Works Office we found a contract of about 140 million pesos”, stated the Public Works Secretary. “We made a trade-in so that the private sector took charge of the construction of the Village and the final investment for the government will range between 3.5 and 4 million dollars”. 

“This represents huge savings” said Vargas Maldonado in declarations broadcasted through the Santo Domingo 2003 the official TV show of the Organizing Committee of Pan-Am 2003 (COPAN), broadcasted each Saturday from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., in channel 4, in the local station Radiotelevision Dominicana.

Vargas Maldonado guaranteed that the Pan American Village will be ready and completely equipped by the end of the present month. 

The Pan American Village is a residential complex with 120 buildings and 720 apartments, built by the Pan American Consortium in a piece of land formerly owned by the Dominican government, at 27 km from the National District, in La Caleta, in the new Santo Domingo province. 

The government has conferred financial facilities to its builders, to whom it granted a loan of 40 million dollars in August last year, through the Banco Nacional de la Vivienda. 

The three-room apartments are sold to particulars at a cost ranging from 950,000 pesos to 1,100,000 pesos. 

The residential complex has been equipped with an international area, a recreation area and a dining room with a 2,000-person capacity as well as a medical area, so that it can operate as the Pan American Village. 

Colonel Justo Amilcar Fernandez, the governor of the Village, was appointed by the Organizing Committee as the person in charge of the operation of the venue. 

Vargas Maldonado defined the venue as the best of its kind ever present in a Pan American Game, based in the opinion of sports experts, including several chiefs of mission of the 42 countries that will participate in the event, to be held here from August 1 to 17. 

Among the countries that will participate in the games are the United States, Cuba, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Other countries that will participate are: Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Haiti, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles (Saba, Saint Eustatius San Martin Bonaire and Curacao), Antigua, Dominica, Santa Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent, Bahamas, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Surinam, Granada, Guyana and the Dominican Republic, which as the host country has a mandatory participation in the competitions of the 35 sports.

The sports to be contended are: athletics, baseball, basketball, boxing, softball, weightlifting, judo, karate, wrestling, equestrian, volleyball (beach and indoor, football, gymnastics, cycling, swimming, tennis, table tennis, modern pentathlon, triathlon, bowling. 

Other sports to be included as well are badminton, racquetball, squash, roller-skating, water ski, rowing, canoe, shooting, field hockey, archery, handball, fencing and jai alai.

Source: http://santodomingo2003.com

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