President Leonel Fernandez and most of the factory owners in the industrial free zones of Santiago and the surrounding areas, commonly known as "Zona Francas" or Free Zones, will be meeting today at the Gran Almirante Hotel in Santiago. According to Diario Libre, the agenda of the meeting deals with the need to re-launch the Free Zones as a prime source of employment in the area. In general, the Free Zones employ about 155,000 people in the Dominican Republic and in Santiago alone there are 57,000 people working in the "Zona Franca". Exports from the industrial parks has reached US$4.0 billion yearly but over the last few months production and exports have dropped, due in large part to the unfettered access of China to the US markets. The President and his economic team will meet with the National Council of Free Zones. World Bank and USAID representatives will also be present.
In spite of four lengthy meetings and several workshops and forums, the situation facing the electricity sector is unchanged. According to El Caribe, President Leonel Fernandez attended the latest meeting last February, and he will preside over a fifth meeting next week. The recent surge in blackouts attributed to fuel saving by the Independent Power Providers (IPPs) has only deepened the crisis that affects the entire population in one way or another. The next meeting is scheduled for 8 and 9 September in Juan Dolio.
Part of the problem resides in the fact that the electricity distributors (EDEs) fear that the application of the General Law of Electricity (128-01) will spur a stampede to auto-generation units for many of their best paying customers, and these EDEs have pressurized the Superintendent of Electricity to increase the minimum needed to qualify for non-regulated status, as stated in comments by Marisol Vicens and Eduardo Valcarcel over the last few weeks.
In addition, as reported by El Caribe, the Dominican Republic is the fourth worst nation in the world when it comes to loss of energy over transmission lines or though thievery. Only Haiti, the Congo and Moldova are worse off. This conclusion is contained in the report prepared by the Adam Smith consultancy firm commissioned by President Fernandez. In 2000, the nation was the ninth worst; in 2002 it occupied the seventh worst position and is currently the fourth worst nation with respect to the loss of energy in the distribution system. The DR easily scores twice the average for all of Latin America in this category and only Haiti (worse) and Nicaragua (slightly better) are also in the top ten of this ranking. Haiti is second worst and Nicaragua is ninth worst. Figures show that the EDEs purchase US$90 million in electricity from the IPPs but are able to collect US$45 million from their customers.
In the DR, there are many pockets of population where everyone pays for the service. These include the touristic areas of Punta Cana-Bavaro area (La Altagracia province), Las Terrenas (Samana province), and even Pedernales, capital of the poorest province in the country, that reports a 95% payment schedule. In these towns, blackouts are few, proving the problems can be resolved.
The president of the Young Entrepeneurs' Association (ANJE), Eduardo Valcarcel, has called on the Superintendent of Electricity to comply with the General Electricity Law (125-01) which regulates everything to do with the electricity sector. According to Valcarcel, the continued violations are causing distortions for industries and businesses that have led to a loss of competitiveness. The main violation of the law, according to El Caribe and cited by Valcarcel, was the administrative change made by the Superintendent's office, that raised the minimum requirements needed to classify for the privileged status of a non-regulated energy consumer.
Electricity billings and frequency of blackouts have increased to such a point that auto-generation has become cost-effective for medium to large-sized companies.
Over the last five years the Dominican government's budget has focused just about the same percentages of its resources to the same entities with little evidence of change. Huge budget assignments for the NGOs appear to be well entrenched in the budgets, reaching RD$1.3 billion this year. There is little, if any, auditing of these NGOs and their performance. According to Listin Diario, another weak point is the fact that there are large government allocations to private institutions that operate in the educational field on a "for profit" basis. The national debt service receives RD$62 billion a year, and a lot of money goes to ministries and governmental offices that "don't do a whole lot" such as the Ministry of Women, Office of Price Controls, the National Council for Agricultural and Forestry Research (CONAIF), the Agriculture Bank and the Dominican Land Reform Institute. The paper reports that Congress received RD$1.5 billion in funding last year, about 1% of the total national income, and this year the new Congress will have to carry out its functions with a budget passed by the former members that reaches RD$3.7 billion. The President's office receives RD$27.66 billion.
A joint meeting between Dominican and Haitian authorities in the border town of Jimani, carried out in conjunction with members of the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), agreed to build "a restraining wall" along the border in order to halt drug trafficking. Both the head of the Dominican National Drug Control Department (DNCD) and the chief of Haiti's police force were in agreement about the measure. Dominican general Radhames Ramirez Ferreira and his Haitian counterpart Mario Andresol agreed to take steps to ensure that no criminal elements would be able to evade punishment by crossing the border. Both men talked to reporters from Hoy after their meeting in Jimani. Andresol pointed out that his police force is concentrated in Port-au-Prince, and that the Haitian authorities are currently attempting to extend its presence to other provinces. The Dominican authorities reported that during the initial phases of the program their troops would have a leading role in controlling the frontier.
In a nation where as many as 30% of the population does not have a birth certificate, the World Bank is initiating a program to eliminate the "legal invisibility" of so many people. According to Diario Libre, the WB will finance a program that will allow Dominican Civil Registry officials to provide birth certificates and personal ID cards called "cedulas" for almost half a million people. The initial start up will include funding for US$3.5 million. The World Bank in Washington approved the loan, and the Central Electoral Board (JCE) and the President's Social Cabinet will sign the protocols next week. The JCE and the Social Cabinet will work through the 161 Civil Registry offices throughout the country. All documents will be completely free to the recipients.
The government resorted to borrowing to solve the problem. Press reports published last year demonstrated that the civil registry offices themselves could generate the funds that could be used to regularize this situation. The reports established that civil registrar officers instead pocket these funds, as part of a political patronage prize.
Good-bye cesspool, and hello, park. This is the story in today's El Caribe that says that within a few more weeks the eyesore that was the putrid lagoon at the intersection of Nunez de Caceres and Gustavo Mejia Ricart avenues in one of Santo Domingo's better neighborhoods will become a beautiful park area for families to enjoy. The new ecological park will be opened in October, according to Santo Domingo Waterworks (CAASD) director Richard Martinez. According to the director, the water used for the park will be potable and clean. Most of the RD$300 million used to eliminate the cesspool was used to channel away the sewage water that used to gravitate to the low-lying area. Local neighborhood groups have also assisted in the creation of the new park.
Two former ministers of education agree that the ministry has to power to censure and charge private schools that violate the regulations that are laid out by the Ministry. For the most part these measures are to do with the texts to be used and the dates for opening and closing the schools. Both Ivelisse Prats de Perez and Milagros Ortiz Bosch agreed to disagree with the statement issued by current Education Minister Alejandrina German who said that the Ministry had no control over what private institutions did. She was specifically referring to what these charge and the practice of changing books every year. Ortiz Bosch said that the Ministry is the governing body for education in the Dominican Republic and, as such, it does have authority over the private institutions.
Families have left more than fifty patients to live out their lives at the nation's only psychiatric facility, the Padre Billini Hospital at kilometer 28 of the Duarte Highway. Some of the patients have been there for as long as 25 years. The hospital, popularly known as "El 28", was built in 1959 and has 200 beds. It receives between 8 and 14 patients a day, and generally sends them home after a 10-day stay. The medical facility receives a government stipend of RD$1.0 million a month and spends 40% of it on food for the patients.
Neither the Spanish ambassador to the Dominican Republic, nor the Dominican ambassador to the court of King Juan Carlos were present at their jobs. Almudena Mazarraza was called back to Spain, and it is unclear whether this was for "consultations" after her recent spate of criticisms about the Dominican justice system or to attend an annual diplomatic get-together. The Dominican ambassador to Spain returned home to attend to some personal business. According to Diario Libre, Spain has not responded to the official Dominican government complaint about the ambassador's comments. The newspaper says that its sources say that the ambassador has been recalled to answer for the uneasy tension between the two nations as a result of her comments.
In a contribution to Saturday's Diario Libre, Simon Guerrero comments that considering the fact that the Spanish ambassador has complained bitterly about the problems experienced by Spanish investors when doing business in the DR, due to corruption, she would do the country a great service if she applied to her fellow Spaniards the anti-bribery laws in effect in the European Union that penalize businessmen who resort to illicit practices to achieve their commercial objectives. Guerrero is referring to the Ministry of Environment's ban on the import of four dolphins from Cuba for the Manati Park installation in Bavaro.
Guerrero writes that Manati Park has a campaign under way that presents the Ministry of Environment's denial of permission as a negative for the tourism industry. The opposite is the case, writes Guerrero. "The repeated practice of importing animals that are then kept in unsuitable conditions could lead powerful North American and European environmental groups to declare a boycott against Dominican tourism, accusing us of animal cruelty," he writes. "In fact, when two of these dolphins died, the Ministry of Tourism received over a thousand e-mails denouncing this to the world," he explains. He adds that due to these e-mails, the Dominican authorities became aware (four months later) of the death of the animals, as they had not been reported by the company. Instead, he explains that when an explanation into the cause of the deaths was required, the company stated that it had incinerated the dolphins without carrying out autopsies. Guerrero says that months later the company produced autopsy results from an unknown British laboratory in order to comply with requirements for the purchase of four more dolphins, and comments that it is a strange case of an autopsy carried out on ashes.
Guerrero points out the contributions to the Dominican environment by Proyecto Araucaria in the southwest of the DR, and laments the fact that two or three unscrupulous Spaniards are damaging Spain's image.
Cicom travel newsletter comments on a 30 August Diario Digital RD story that speculates that the Manati Park case could be behind Spanish Ambassador Almudena Mazarraza's recent complaints about the lack of supposedly juridical guarantees for foreign investors doing business in the DR.
Guerrero explains: "When they were denied permission to import the dolphins, they availed themselves of an irregular permit issued in 2004 that did not have an expiry date, to purchase four dolphins in Cuba, which were loaded onto a airplane to be brought to the country through Punta Cana Airport, without the corresponding permit from the Department of Wildlife, trusting that they could break the law using bribery and blackmail."
http://www.diariolibre.com/app/article.aspx?id=77645
The Diego de Ocampo mountain is an ecological reserve, but trees on the north coast's highest peak are being cut down at an alarming rate. According to Listin Diario, both hardwoods and fruit trees are being cut along the buffer zone of the southern flanks of the mountain. The mountain is one of the few scientific forest reserves in the Dominican Republic. Most of the cutting is of the "slash and burn" method in order to plant a few crops. Much of the degradation of the forests has taken place in Piedra de Palmar Arriba in the Villa Gonzalez municipal area. According to campesinos who live in the area, most of the usable wood is taken out along improvised roads during the night. The "Las Lagunas" ecological group from Villa Gonzalez took Listin Diario reporters to the sites of various clear cuts and emphasized the need to halt the cutting.
While the government has stated that dengue cases have not reached an epidemic level, the fight to reduce the severity of the outbreak has increased substantially. Diario Libre says that 124 new cases have been reported. This brings the total number to 2,546 cases, and if the cases continue to come in, some medical observers believe that they might see figures on a similar scale to 2003's 100 deaths and more than 6,000 cases. Government units are spraying all ponds and other stagnant water, as well as open sewers and vacant lots. El Caribe reports that the governor of Santo Domingo province and the municipal authorities of Los Alcarrizos have joined forces to carry out simultaneous spraying campaigns to eliminate the mosquito vector. High School students and other volunteers are assisting with the three-day campaign. Sectors explain the deaths have occurred because those affected have delayed treatment. The symptoms of dengue are similar to those of a common cold.
In a move that will surely get smiles from consumers, prices for regular and premium gasoline as well as diesel fell for the fourth week in a row. Prices are now in line with last February, according to Diario Libre. Propane gas, used for cooking and fuel for the "publicos" that carry passengers along fixed routes also fell by ninety cents. LPG now costs RD$47.28 for cooking and vehicular use and RD$69.15 for industrial use. News commentators wonder why the transporters have not announced price reductions, given that they are so prompt to announce price increases when prices have gone up.
The Flea Market that operates in Santo Domingo generates RD$30 million each week, over RD$1.5 billion each year, according to the president of the Association of Flea Market Merchants, Jose Manuel Caro. However, the market is under threat of being dislodged from its spot by the Santo Domingo Municipal Council if they don't pay their taxes. Each trader is required to pay RD$750 in order to operate a stall or sales point in the market. This license fee is in addition to the weekly fee that varies between RD$75 and RD$200. The market, that has grown in leaps and bounds given the low cost of the vendor space, has converted the western end of the Malecon into a miniature Haiti, affecting those who reside nearby or businesses in the area.
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