Interview Elsa de León – Governor of the Province of Samaná

Elsa de León – Governor of the Province of Samaná

Elsa de León was born and performed her primary schools in Las Terrenas.
Then, she went to the secondary school in Sánchez. Later, she went to the University Of San Pedro de Macoris where she obtained her law licence.
She also has a master in international relations of the Catholic University of Santo Domingo.
Moreover, she attended course on the international legislation in the University of Harvard, Boston, United States.
She followed several courses and seminars in the international field; she took part in three forums, including two in Davos in Switzerland, the world economic forum, and a third which took place in New York.
She lived in China during five years and two years and half in South Africa, contracted by an Italian private company for which her ex-husband worked.
It is the first time that Elsa de León works in the public field for a government.

LTL: Mrs. de León good morning. From where does your motivation come ? And what it is the difference between you and people who just like you were born in Las Terrenas ? Is this the fact that you traveled a lot ?
Elsa de León: What happens is that it was always a difference which is the result of education.
We received instruction, we are a family of seven children and thanks to God, on the seven, six among us have a profession, only one did not want to study and stayed here with my mother.
We are the first of Las Terrenas who studied to have a profession, the first who were born here, who studied here, and who left from here for Sánchez and from Sánchez to San Fransisco de Macoris. Because there are other professionals who were only born in Las Terrenas, they are not the first professionals of LasTerrenas, we are the first.
We went to Sánchez in the public pick-up; by pushing it to go up in the hill because of the mud and because the road was almost impracticable.
This then made a great difference between us and our friends and classmates born here and with whom we grew because they remained behind.
Much of them started to study later once adult and this is very well because they tried to excel themselves. But the truth is not that people left, the truth is that many people did not study when they would have to study.
LTL: Are the friends and the classmates still there ?
Elsa de León: The majority of my classmates of the primary school are still here. Some of them are professors.
LTL: Among your classmates coming from Las Terrenas and who still live here, does it exists a common will to make the things progressing ?
Elsa de León: We are always willing to offer support and this is why I am here.
If not, I would not have any reason to fight for this village.
But I am coming from here and I want to see my village progressing. Here, people have a mentality a little….I don’t know how to describe it without making a mistake, but people of the village do not have much will to help if I could say this.
They do not have much will to make that this village is organized and progress. When it is a question of doing something here, it is difficult and nobody helps you.
Simply I say to myself, I am here, I stay here, I am trying to help the village, but if the village is not interested, I will say that I am sorry but that I go away from here. When it is a question of doing something, there is little collaboration on behalf of people.
Now, if it was a question of drinking rum, to set up a bar, to make “Sanki Panki” and to dance bachata, then it would be a long line.
But for the wellbeing of the community, very few people are willing to help.
LTL: How would you define your function of governor ?
Elsa de León: It is the first time that I am working in the public sector for a government.
It is a good experience, really, it is a very pleasant experience because I underwent everything and I lived absolutely everything. I feel that I made a good work within the limits of my means. I feel in agreement with what I could do, with the assistance that I could really bring to some people, within this function of governor.
However, there are people who take the responsibility of governor as something exceptional whereas it is only a simple representation of the executive power.
The governors are not elected, we are appointed by the president of the Republic, we don’t have a budget, and we depend on the presidency of the Republic.
As a colleague of Monte Cristi says “the governor is the shirt front of the government”, the “bulletproof” of the government: One put everything on the governor responsibility, the good and the bad one, the complaints, the governor must absorb everything because according to people, he is the closest person of the president, which is not the case.
In fact, we cannot see the president as often as we would like and we cannot either submit our reports as much as we would like it.
LTL: What is the mission of a governor ?
Elsa de León: Our basic mission is to perform a social work and to inform the various dependences of state of the problems of the province, thing that generally we are doing. For certain things there is a follow-up, others are pending; everything is similar as the system.
LTL: How do you see the future of your function ?
Elsa de León: I think that on August 16, I will go away, it is my intention, but I am a partisan of the president of the Republic, I support his initiatives, however my decision is to go from there on August 16. Now, if the president decides that I must stay for some reason, I am like a good guardian, I obey the orders. I would like to go from there and for the moment it is my decision, we will see, but I think that yes, that I will go away on day 16.
LTL: And from whom will come this decision ?
Elsa de León: It was the president who appointed me and it is the president who will withdraw me. Then, as the president did not say yet if I stay or if I go, for the moment I don’t know. I have the desire to go but if he requires that I stay here to complete a work, I can still devote a little more time to him, but with a limit.
I am not willing to be even more stupid while trashing about so many odd people.
LTL: So, maybe we will meet again after August 16 ?
Elsa de León: Of course, I am here and still for a moment.
LTL: What is the reason of your departure ?
Elsa de León: I am really tired; I feel that is not worth to continue to fight.
LTL: What is missing ?
Elsa de León: Everything is missing. It is a nice job, which can be well performed with the support of the government.
But there is no support. It is a position in which you are assigned and here you are, you are a governor. But what is a governor ? I would like that one of my colleagues explains it.
What is a governor ? A mayor during the era of Trujillo was more important than a governor nowadays.
I have the feet on the ground and I know that it is a momentary position and that I cannot think I am the president of the Republic. But the majority of the people who is holding this position is going with a vehicle in front of and a vehicle behind, just like the president, with five police officers, because the position gives power.
A power which people is using as they wish.
LTL: If the president would give a little more support for your work, would it change something ?
Elsa de León: It would totally change.
LTL: And what kind of support could be provided by the president ?
Elsa de León: I would say you that we not only speak about an economic support but also about a moral support. For example, we have in this moment a problem with the truck-drivers because of a decision of the Secretary of Tourism who asks the chief of the Police to prohibit to trucks, small or big, to circulate through the « loma » to go to Sánchez.
It is illogical, irrational, it is a lack of tact, a small truck obliged to make the detour by Samaná is inconceivable.
If I am the governor, why the Secretary of Tourism does not present me the situation ?
Why does he not formulate the problem to me ? The person who is here and who knows the problems from here, that’s me.
The Secretary of Tourism comes here only from time to time. And now, this problem is a time bomb because anger goes up in the village. And if they decide to take 80 small trucks and to block the traffic and tourism, who will be affected ? Us, once more.
It is for this reason that I consider that this measure is stupid and illogical.
LTL: And if you leave, to what will you dedicate yourself ?
Elsa de León: I would like to direct me towards a diplomatic post because it is in this field that I studied and therefore I am prepared for, which is not the case of the function to which they assigned me.
LTL: How the governorship could be improved ?
Elsa de León: I believe that I discharged my function with respect.
Everyone cannot like you and there will be always criticisms, coming from mediocre people, they are never constructive criticisms but always destructive ones.
Generally, criticisms come precisely from the people who are from the same side than you or from the same political party as you’re.
It is from there that the most criticisms are coming.
But you cannot be upset with them; it is the mediocrity which generates that.
Because, while being to the governorship, in order that the things function better, what you have to do is for instance when a civil servant X is not achieving his work as he should, is to offer him your assistance instead of destroying him.
I believe that since this governorship is in a tourist area, it should receive more support, we need more widening, it is here that there are more problems, in all the fields, in environment as well as in tourism; we have complaints emerging from everywhere. And they are problems that sometimes we feel unable to solve because the solutions depend on the government.
I believe that the conflicts are solved if one faces them and not by putting obstacles, especially in the tourist sector.
LTL: Now, we are living a period of movement, everything is developing there in a strong way. What do you think about this development ?
Elsa de León: Well, in Las Terrenas, while not speaking about the province (and when I speak, I should speak at the provincial level), I believe that the development was done too quickly. And it is true that people from here were not prepared for such a development. Consequently, we can realize that we do not have the infrastructures, that everything is “manga por hombro” (disordered), and that people did not yet assimilate the growth.
LTL: When you are speaking about people, to whom are you referring ?
Elsa de León: I am talking about the local people but not only. Imagine what happens to us, we assimilate the bad things, we learn quickly what is bad, but of what is good, we do not copy anything because that does not interest us.
And I say that because being in a village with so many different cultures, this should teach us the good from each culture and not the bad one. However, we can also see that the foreigners are like the local people.
A foreigner of any nationality, French, Italian, Chinese or German arrives here and as of the following day, drives motor bike without muffler, without helmet (but that, there is no need to mention it), he trails the feet on the ground, throws his Coke can in the street, does not clean the front of his house: he is “dominicanized” in few days.
The foreigners do not learn what is good from the Dominican but what is bad and the Dominicans learn the bad one from the foreigners, therefore here, it is crazy.
LTL: Do you see the future of Las Terrenas very different from that of Samaná ?
Elsa de León: It is very different because in Samaná, there are not beaches, it is more monotonous, more tedious, more apathetic and because in Las Terrenas there is more dynamism. Las Terrenas is the economic empire of the province and it will continue like that, regardless of the fact that Santa Barbará de Samaná is the capital of the province.
In my opinion, it should be Las Terrenas because the dynamism is here, it is here that one produces money and without money, it does not matter that it is the capital.
LTL: And despite of the problems, this dynamism does it not come from the exchange between Europeans and Dominicans ?
Elsa de León: Obviously, it is what instigates economy, the mixture of people just like the quantity of projects and of constructions, although I consider that many are carried out without any control, without regulation.
Here, it is a little bit the disaster and if they do not regulate and if the things do not change, unfortunately it will be worse than in Sosua.
I don’t know if it is intentional.
Sometimes I think that yes it is, that we will damage Las Terrenas so that there is no more growth. Because if Las Terrenas is organized and if one does all the things that it is necessary to do, it will be very well.
There is no tourist pole in Dominican Republic as beautiful as Las Terrenas.
Not even Bavaro. In Bavaro, there are beautiful beaches but here we have everything. The difference with Bavaro is the integration of the village and of the inhabitants with the tourist who visits us, which is not the case in Bavaro. If you arrive to Bavaro, you do not arrive in Dominican Republic, you travel by plane to the airport of Punta Cana, you stay in the hotel and you do not see and do not know anything of the country. It is the difference.
LTL: I remember a article published in the national press in which it was mentioned that the government of President Fernández had a kind of project over the four next years to support the Peninsula of Samaná.
Elsa de León: I think that they are making things.
For example, we have here a very big investment which is the multiple aqueduct of the province and the road Santo Domingo-Samaná, which brings a lot, as well as the airport. I believe that the government made large investments in the province.
We cannot complain about the investment of the government, and in truth, the president knows that Samaná is a pole which will have more and more importance and that it is necessary to attach importance to it.
LTL: Now, let us tackle the problem of the streets of Las Terrenas. Is it a problem of the government, Secretariat of Public works, the syndic… ?
Elsa de León: The problem of the streets is the problem of a company and mainly of the Secretariat of Tourism.
To be honest, it is a problem of the Secretariat of Tourism because it contracted a company for work of the waste water treatment plant. We know that all this excavation works cause nuisances.
They generate irritation but we need a sanitary system in Las Terrenas. It is extremely important.
But the company which was hired is a company which was not prepared to carry out this kind of work.
And what I’m saying is committing myself only but I would like that someone demonstrates me the opposite. It is a company without supervision, disorganized.
All this chaos that it generated in Las Terrenas did not have any reason to be because in Samaná, they are building the aqueduct with the company Odebrecht, which is an organized company, which when it opens a trench installs an indication and which, as soon as the work is completed, fills the holes.
They do not asphalt them immediately because the work is not completed but they repair the roads to allow the traffic, which is not the case here.
LTL: The company which performed the work here was the Solsanit company ?
Elsa de León: I do not even know their name because they are so much inconsiderate that I do not want to even know their name. But this problem is linked to the mayor and the Secretariat of Public works, because regardless of the fact that the Secretariat of Tourism hired a company to complete a work, it is supposed that the public ways are falling within the competence of Public works and of the town hall.
Regarding the mayor, he does not have enough tact to impose to the company that “as long as a road is opened, you do not open any other as long as this one is not finished and is not in conditions for the traffic”.
Public works on their side cannot ignore that the streets are wrecked and to be unaware of the situation. In Las Terrenas the inhabitants are irritated and they are right. Look at my pick-up; I do not have to find a reason to wash it ! I believe that all the institutions which were involved in these works failed. Public works, the town hall and Tourism failed.
Tourism also because it hired this company and it would have to better supervise.
The team of Tourism must control that the company achieves its work correctly but they do not even do it. And if they are doing it, I do not know which kind of reports they make.
LTL: And what are doing people of Tourism here in Las Terrenas ?
Elsa de León: I could not say to you if there are people of Tourism here. Every time I hear that they come for a control, I would like that it is the Secretary of Tourism in person who comes.
For example these junk constructions which are right beside my house, which were built within the framework of a project without authorization of Tourism, but with the inspectors of Tourism present here every day until the construction were terminated.
For that, Tourism emitted a letter of no objection when construction was already finished.
Then explain me, what is the supervision made by the Secretariat of Tourism here ? There is none. The law applies for one and not for the other.
And I am completely against the bribery, I hate that.
This was done at the time of Balaguer, but I believe that in a government as that of Leonel Fernández we must be cautious because the president does not admit this kind of practice.
Then the civil servants should have a little more tact and would have, like sometimes done by the chief of the Polic, to come in a place, to arrive by surprise and to see with their own eyes what is occurring and they should not delegate either so many things to civil servants of second category.
Like the general Santana Páez, who came incognito, without warning anybody of his visit, to realize of what was happening.
Last Friday for example, the president of the Supreme Court of justice was in visit in the province.
The law courts of Samaná appeared to be a pigsty so much it was dirty and in two days, all was perfectly painted, cleaned and arranged.
No ! Leave the things as they are ! Made surprise visits, without warning, so that you see as it is disgusting here inside !
Look in which state are the streets of Las Terrenas.
And if the president announces his visit, in one day all the streets are asphalted.
Leave them like that, thus the president will have the same look that I have and will have to avoid the same holes !
LTL: Mrs. de León, thank you very much for your time and your answers.

Interview by Sylvain MAUFRAIS for Las Terrenas Live