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Deputies convened to go back to work The Chamber of Deputies will convene for work on Tuesday, 8 October. The deputies have been on a forced holiday after major renovations began at their headquarters. But there is speculation that the 72 deputies of the PRSC and the PLD will not show. Likewise, Diario Libre says that there is a small group of PRD legislators that may also not attend the session, as a show of their own rejection of the choice of a Central Electoral Board appointed without consensus. There are 72 PRD deputies, and if all these attend a session, plus the four PRSC deputies partial to the PRD, who make up the board of the chamber then quorum could be made, though. President Hipolito Mejia has threatened not to pay their wages or per diems if the deputies do not return to work. |
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Green light to cut service to government President Hipolito Mejia gave the green light to AES Ede Este to cut the service to government departments in arrears with the power distributor. Several of the government departments that AES Ede Este accuses of being in arrears say they have disputed the charges made by the company. Attorney General Virgilio Bello Rosa says that his service cannot be cut because he has lodged a formal complaint for a review of the charges. National Treasurer Pastora Mendez de Fondeur says that she is up to date on her payments. Traditionally, the government has been among the most delinquent in paying its power bills. Government departments have left it up to the central government to negotiate with the power companies, so that their payments are included in the subsidy. Other government departments have used the budgeted provisions for power service for other purposes and are now appealing to the central government to step in and foot the bills. In his 17 September address on the power situation, President Hipolito Mejia said that the government departments would be responsible for their own power bills. The following government departments were on the list of delinquent institutions sent by AES to the press: Comision de Apoyo a la Reforma y Modernizacion de la Justicia Procuraduria General de la Republica Secretaria de Agricultura Secretaria de Obras Publicas Instituto Agrario Dominicano Comedores Economicos Dominicanos Secredtaria de Deportes Radio Television Dominicana Instituto Nacional de Auxilios y Viviendas Pro Comunidad Oficina Nacional de Planificacion Secretaria de Estado de la Mujer Tesoreria Nacional de la Republica Autoridad Portuaria Oficina Nacional de Estadisticas |
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Giving more to Union Fenosa than asked for El Caribe newspaper reports today that the Mejia administration has made concessions beyond even what the power distributors had requested. According to the newspaper, the government set a subsidy that went beyond what the companies needed. Likewise, the newspaper says that President Mejia accepted all requests that the executives of Union Fenosa made to him when he visited their offices in May of this year during a European tour. The newspaper says that the measures announced by Mejia in his 17 September address are contained in a letter sent by the executives of the Spanish company. The newspaper says that Union Fenosa, in a letter dated 28 May, had said that their ghetto barrios consume RD$600-million a year, or RD$50-million a month (and do not pay for this service for the most part). This in addition to RD$19-million for AES Ede Este brings the total to RD$69-million a month for the barrios in which the government has traditionally paid for the service. Nevertheless, the government chose to establish a subsidy for these companies amounting to RD$100-million - RD$31-million more than the companies had requested. According to the newspaper, the government commission, headed by Minister of Finance Jose Lois Malkum, spent four months renegotiating the contracts with the generators and to arrive at what would be the best formula to resolve the power crisis. In the end, the Mejia government decided that most of the production should abide by the Madrid Agreement, which sets high fixed prices to the benefit of the companies, instead of having the companies fend for themselves in a free market, where they would have to adapt their prices to supply and demand, as originally had been contemplated in the privatization scheme. El Caribe questions if the government was merely going to take up the requests of Union Fenosa, why did it have to spend four months supposedly deliberating? The newspaper publishes the complete letter from Luis Ramiro Diaz Lopez, vice president of Union Fenosa where the requests assumed by President Mejia in his 17 September speech, are contained. |
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Criticizing the past, but giving more now Engineer Ramon Flores writes in Hoy newspaper on how President Hipolito Mejia has verbally criticized the privatization agreements signed by the past government. But instead of changing things to favor consumers affected by these negotiations, the Mejia administration has increased the benefits granted to the companies and extended the time periods. Flores says that the contracts signed by the past government have been renegotiated by the current government. Several of these would have expired in 2004 and thereby released the Dominican population from the onerous terms. However, the present government chose to extend these contracts to the year 2020. This includes the RD$400-million, or 2.75% commission, the companies make on annual sales, supposedly for technology transfer, which would have expired in 2004, but now will last another 16 years. Likewise, the government chose to instate a US$0.55/kilowatt-hour surcharge on the distribution value already set by the Superintendence of Power to further benefit the companies, despite the inferior service these are delivering. While the contracts would have expired and would have gone to the free market, where supply and offer would have determined prices in benefit of consumers, the government chose rather to fix prices for 15 years. The prices are indexed to reflect fluctuations in inflation, petroleum prices and the devaluation of the peso. In his 17 September speech, the government passed the burden of these increases to the middle class and business class. Flores says that the worst error of all made in the privatization process was to privatize the energy market under a scheme of free market competition, whereby the distribution and the generation sectors would compete, and then to allow the merging of the companies, while letting them act as if they were independent entities. He explains that in a small country with weak institutions, it is unlikely the Superintendence of Power will be able to regulate the sector and instead will be absorbed by the predominance of the large influential power companies, to the detriment of consumers, who are today paying very inflated prices. Flores also comments that the government has violated the Power Ruling it had only just approved to benefit the companies. And he mentions that there is new pressure to modify the General Electricity Law to further accommodate the illegal affiliations of distributor and generation companies, as these take control of the energy market. Flores says that President Mejia was hypocritical to condemn the past contracts, when his government went ahead with subsidies, extensions to the administration and contracts, and modifications to the values and exchange surcharges – with an extended contract that will fix these prices for 15 years. He has also modified the rulings to please the companies. Flores concludes: “All these decisions are substantial modifications to the agreements that came with capitalization and the rules of the game for privatization. In all cases, without exception, those changes have favored the power companies. The only certain benefit that the government has obtained is to provisionally relieve itself of the burden of the blackouts.” |
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President cancels appearance in chat President Hipolito Mejia cancelled his appearance on a Univision online chat during his visit to Miami, the last stop on his 10-day US tour. Reportedly, the participation of President Mejia in the chat was suspended after negative comments appeared on the forum prior to the start of the actual chat. |
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Census set for next weekend Dominicans will be polled nationwide next weekend. The National Population and Housing Poll is set for the 18-19-20 of October. The National Statistics Office is organizing the poll and Listin Diario reports that the survey will cost RD$200-million. The objectives of the poll are to provide a social and economic snapshot of the nation, while at the same time creating a nationwide data collection system. Some 120,000 people will visit homes to gather the necessary information throughout the three-day effort. The ONE is promising preliminary results in 30 days and final results in seven months. Luis Hernandez Martes, director of ONE, says that the census is the product of two years of preparatory work. |
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Exporting metal junk Listin Diario reports that an annual average of 22 ships dock at the Metales Antillanos Isabela River scrap metal junkyard. The company packages and exports scrap metal received from junk dealers from all around the country. Large companies with metal wastes, such as Troquedom, Metaldom, Falconbridge and Inoxida, also send their scrap metal to Metales Antillanos. Jose Ignacio Acero, general manager of the company, says that about 60,000 tons of junk is exported every year for recycling abroad. The metal is exported to smelting plants in Taiwan, Jamaica and Guadeloupe. |
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Jealous Frenchman burns family The 16-year old son of a 31-year old Haitian immigrant is recovering from severe burns in the Santiago Jose Cabral y Baez hospital after escaping from a tragic family dispute in Sabaneta del Cangrejo, near Sosua, Puerto Plata. Albert Jean Luc Casimir, the 50-year-old French lover of the adolescent’s mother, in a fit of jealousy set his home on fire at 4 am. Casimir was reportedly furious with Marietta Louis Peña for refusing to continue their love affair. He allegedly had given her an ultimatum to choose between him and her children. They had been together for six months. News reports say that Marietta had told the Sosua Touristic Police that the man was threatening her life but the Police discarded the complaint by telling her that the man was not crazy. Having come to the Dominican Republic at the age of three, Marietta made a living braiding tourists’ hair on Sosua beach. Family violence has been making headlines recently. In the first quarter of the year, 27 women have been murdered violently by their spouses. Statistics show that in 2001, a total of 108 women were killed by their spouses. |
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Jose Carreras booked for November Jose Carreras, one of the world’s leading tenors, is scheduled for a 12 November presentation at the National Theater. A presentation that would have taken place in June had to be suspended when Carreras suffered a cold. Carreras will be accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maestro Jose Antonio Molina. |
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