On my last trip y had a funny conversatin with la cocinera risue?a of a little parador somewhere inbetween Rio San Juan and Nagua... I mentioned my interest in coming to stay on her island someday and she asked me where to I was looking at and I mentioned Puerto Plata... She laught and just shook her head:
"Ai NO!. Pero no sea tonto!. No se meta cerca de las ciudades... poque ahi le van hacer pagar la electricidad!" ("Oh no. Don't be stupid. Don't go close to the cities, they will make you pay for your electricity!).
Electricity seems to be a loosing business anyhow in this country, generating a good portion of the country's deficit. It's also, along with botteled gas a political issue that carries on from administration to administration... one could speculate that neither government nor opposition would really like to see the problem go away, because, what would they campaingn about on the next election.. almost like medicare and SS in the US.
You can't take cooking gas and energy for light and Bachatta boomboxes away from the PEOPLE. If you make the poor ones pay for it, it's like you're taking it away from them. Most are poor but they still have a vote on the next elections too... sooooo... get the picture?
The REAL problem with energy is not that of people not paying for it (well yes, it IS a porblem, but... ) . The porblem is that the DR is burning imported fuel on debt in old inadequate plants, thus driving the country further into debt and still not even supplying the country (I am not talking about some luxury condo) with the necesary energy at a reasonable price so that the economy (Eg: Industry) could at least profit from from the whole mess.
The DR will eventually have to reform his electricity production to renewable sources, producing more energy at a better rate.
... J-D.
