Just two weeks before CDE becomes the first state-owned enterprise to be put to bids in the Government’s capitalization program, a coalition of five leftist organizations have announced that they will seek court actions to block the program’s implementation. The Patriotic Union (UPA), Dominican Workers Party (PTD), Dominican Popular Movement (MPD), Communist Workers Party (PCT) and Alternative Action (AA) said at a press conference yesterday that next week they will seek court orders blocking the capitalization program, which they characterized as "illegal." They said that the Constitution prohibits the transfer of national patrimony to private hands. They also argued that (1) the state-owned companies up for capitalization are being purposefully undervalued in order to expedite their sale; (2) "in not a single country in the world has privatization solved a social problem"; (3) the recent examples of private company handling of telephones, energy generation and garbage collection in the DR should make Dominicans think twice about giving more public enterprises to the private sector.
