At a time when blackouts are back following the Christmas holidays, the Dominican government announces it will pay the electricity generators US$65 million this month. The payment is for over due bills and subsidies on electricity supplied to the poorest neighborhoods. The payment is part of the plan to recover the viability in the electric sector, and is part of the proposed agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). President Leonel Fernandez and his Secretary of the Presidency Danilo Medina headed a meeting yesterday between government officials in the energy sector and representatives of the energy producers. They will return to the table today to continue discussions on just how to make the electricity supply stable and available to most of the people. The proposals will be presented to the World Bank (WB). A US$350 million item for electricity subsidies is included in the 2005 National Budget. The subsidies, a source of much discussion with the IMF technicians, will be reduced during the year, reaching just US$10 million by December 2005. As reported in the Listin Diario, once the payment is made, service is expected to return to that delivered in December 2004, when blackouts were reduced to a minimum.
Diario Libre reports today that power rates are 26.2% more than they should be to allow for the government to recover losses generated by the subsidy.