Santo Domingo, RD.
Foreign Minister Roberto Álvarez reported today that the construction of “the perimeter fence” planned by the Dominican Republic would cover approximately 190 kilometers of the 391 kilometers that border Haiti.
The Chancellor was interviewed in the program El Día, produced by Huchi Lora for Telesistema, and also hosted by Carolina Santana and Edith Febles.
The estimated cost of that fence would be more than $ 100 million, according to the Chancellor, and it is a long-term project.
Álvarez said 23 kilometers of fence between the two countries has been built as of today, and it is expected to have 30 kilometers of easily accessible places by the end of the year.
He said the government is negotiating with two Israeli companies and one Spanish to hire the border fence “that’s as the president said technologically and physically”.
The Dominican authorities plan to install sensors and drones that would add to the physical fence itself. “That contract that is currently being put out to tender will have funding modalities,” said the Dominican foreign minister in the television program.
“It could cost more than $ 100 million in total, that’s not an outrageous amount and it would set funding modalities for long-term payments,” he said. “It’s not something we think will go beyond budget for years to come.”
“The goal is to create the conditions to achieve different goals. One to facilitate trade, the other to prevent irregular migration. Stop all kinds of smuggling at the border and at the same time guarantee coexistence, ”said the Dominican Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Roberto Álvarez said the fence’s construction allows regularization of the access points. “Where trade takes place in a normal, logical way at the border,” he insisted. From there, the methods of radars, drones and sensors are used to identify where a hole has been opened and thus train personnel to stop “any improper crossing.”
Dominican President Luis Abinader announced in his account to the country on Saturday that his government planned to build a double fence between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The construction would take place at the points of the greatest conflict on the border between the two countries.
The Dominican president said the new security measures would combine physical and technological means, “and will include a double fence in the most conflicting parts and a simple one in the rest, in addition to motion sensors, facial recognition cameras, radars. and infrared ray systems ”.
“With all this and over a two-year period, we want to end the serious problems of illegal immigration, drug trafficking and the transit of stolen vehicles that we have experienced for years and achieve the protection of our territorial integrity that we have sought since our independence, ”Abinader told the National Assembly and special guests.