The president of the Dominican Petroleum Refinery says the cost of electricity should be going down since the cost of fuel has gone down. Amaury Justo Duarte said the price of gas oil and fuel oil has been dropping “enormously” in the last few weeks but this hasn’t been reflected in electric bills. He told El Caribe that the generating companies should be investigated and the administrators of the CDE questioned about this. Justo Duarte suggested the price of power should fluctuate according to the price of fuel on the international market. However, Electricity Superintendent José Ovalles said The Madrid Accord ruled that the billed price of electricity must stay frozen until 2003. Meanwhile, the power outages continue. Most parts of Puerto Plata province suffered a long blackout yesterday. It began in the early morning and continued well into the night. Hoteliers particularly complained of having to use their back up generators all day and pointed out that Edenorte, the power company, was sending out bills with new price increases.
