"The program also aims to ensure that visitors can enjoy an organized and clean country, so that what one sees in other societies with a minimum of organization in their main roads, we can also see here.".
SANTO DOMINGO. - Deligne Ascención, Minister of Public Works and Communications, led a meeting yesterday, Tuesday, with dozens of elected mayors, who will take office on the 24th of this month, with whom he will undertake the cleaning of roads and highways, through the program “My Clean Highway”, which begins on Friday, April 26 of this year.
Ascención, speaking at the meeting held at the MOPC headquarters, said that “My Clean Highway” is an alliance with those representing the municipality around the main highways, other state institutions and the citizens, in order to preserve the roads and their surroundings.
“With this program, the MOPC seeks to have a positive impact on the environment and health, as well as promote a culture of cleanliness in public spaces, reporting that every day, brigades from the institution collect an average of about 240 tons every month,” he said.
He explained that the program also aims to ensure that "those who visit us can enjoy an organized and clean country, so that what one sees in other societies with a minimum of organization in their main roads, we can also see here.".
He argued that this plan is a long road, because it will involve a change in behavior and, “cultures are not changed with programs or specific actions, but with the implementation of a habit of cleanliness, organization and order, where the main actor is the citizen, because it does not matter how many times you clean or eliminate dumps if you do not promote abstaining from throwing waste in the streets, and taking into account that the cleanest town is not the one that cleans the most, but the one that gets the least dirty.”.
He said that the program fulfills President Luis Abinader's desire to successfully complete his term in office, and that it is based on Law 687-82 and its amendments, which mandates the maintenance of the country's highways and main roads.
“With you, mayors and directors of municipal districts (mostly elected and not yet in office), the citizens and the neighborhood associations, we are going to begin this journey, which will be long, and which will fill us with satisfaction in our lives as public servants, so that we can say 'we contributed to making a clean, more organized Dominican Republic, and a place where visitors can go out and talk about the natural beauty, the spirit and the kind of people that we Dominicans are made of, and that they have arrived in a country of order and cleanliness,'” he explained.
He emphasized that the country has achieved high levels of progress, development and investment in the main roads, which are not complemented by highways that can be shown to be clean.
He added that a campaign will be carried out in the main media outlets to intensify public awareness about waste on the roads.
Also speaking at the event was the Minister of Agriculture, Limbert Cruz, who highlighted the successes of a similar program on rural roads that he shares with the Ministry of Public Works and Communications (MOPC), as directed by President Abinader.
The event was attended by the mayors-elect Dio Astacio, of Santo Domingo East; Francisco Peña, of Santo Domingo West; Junior Santos, of Los Alcarrizos; Luis Pavolo, of Villa Altagracia; Pedro Contreras, of Piedra Blanca; Raymundo Ortiz Díaz, of San Pedro de Macorís; Miguel Ángel Valera, of Sabana Grande de Palenque; Nelson de la Rosa, of San Cristóbal, among others.
Also, the elected district directors Nelson Brito, from Quita Sueño; Juan Manuel Cerón, from El Carril; Mirtha Elena Pérez, from La Guáyiga, among others.
Similarly, the deputy ministers of the MOPC Luis Bastardo, of Road Maintenance; Ángel Tejeda, of Planning and Technical Regulation; Mélito Santana, of Regional Coordination; the directors of Cabinet and Administrative and Financial, Rafael Espinal and Alejandro Ramírez.
In addition, the regional directors and provincial managers of the MOPC Pedro Herrera, from the Valdesia Region; Arcadio Rosario, from San Cristóbal; Yendy Reyes, from La Vega; Pedro Fulgencio, from San Pedro de Macorís, among others.
