Hoy newspaper describes the convoluted economics that is spelling ?blackouts? for most of the country these past few days. El Caribe reports that EGE-Haina took the ?Sultana del Este? off-line and that last week Itabo took out one of its units, reducing its production to just 120MW. Now it seems that EDE-Este, the electricity distribution firm that supplies the East and a large portion of Santo Domingo, owes US$40 million to generating firms, such as AES-Andres, who provide the electricity in the first place. The government, however, owes EDE-Este RD$1 billion in subsidy money for supplying the poorer neighborhoods with electricity under an arrangement that ended widespread rioting last year. The chain of debts has caused AES-Andres to keep its LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) facilities in Boca Chica and Los Mina shut down, representing a 500-megawatt loss to the system. Manuel Lopez San Pablo, the spokesman for AES, told Hoy reporters that the government paid AES US$10 million that was owed, but that monthly payments of US$3 million were still due. This was the sum that was agreed upon in the February talks that took place between the major power generators and the government to attempt to stabilize the electrical situation. Lopez San Pablo explained the situation as such: ?It takes US$18 million to bring a shipload of LNG to Andres. The government paid US$10 million in February and promised to continue payments of US$3 million monthly, but we have not received these payments, and they are what will permit us to purchase the natural gas.? According to Lopez San Pablo, the same litany of promises and missed payments applies to the subsidy that the government promised the distributors in order to get electricity into the neediest neighborhoods and quell any unrest due to prolonged power outages.