“The electric system is between hope and darkness” is El Caribe’s depiction of what it goes on to describe as “the worst stint of power cuts in ten years.” The generating companies continue to wait for the government and the distributors to pay their debts, while supply has sunk to as little as 50% of consumer demand in the last 24 hours. Generating stations around the country are lying idle, resulting in lengthy power interruptions. It is reported that the distribution of power cuts is far from equitable, with some neighborhoods suffering blackouts of up to 18 consecutive hours, while in other areas the outages only last for eight. The wealthier areas are not spared, however, as Urbanizacion Fernandez and El Millon, two districts in the capital, have endured 17-hour power cuts in the last few days. Other parts of the country report outages of 20 hours or more. Some of the papers report this morning that the government has made a payment of US$30 million to the generating companies, to whom it owes a total of US$375 million. This latest payment represents just 8% of the total debt.
Listin Diario reveals that the administrative process aimed at resuming the flow of oil from Venezuela is underway. A Dominican diplomatic source in Caracas told the newspaper that the president of the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos Venezolanos, Ali Rodriguez, held a meeting with Dominican ambassador Manuel Morales Lama, after which he authorized documentation to be sent for the necessary contracts. This development comes two weeks after an apparent heal in the rift between the two countries, which arose when Venezuela accused the Dominican government of complicity in a plot against President Hugo Chavez.