In an interview with Listín Diario, the executive vice president of the Dominican Public Electricity Corporation, engineer Rubén Jiménez Bichara shares details of the tender that awarded the construction of the US$2 billion plus coal-fired power plant in Punta Catalina, Peravia province.
The plant will have the capacity to generate 720 megawatts and is scheduled to enter into operation in mid-2018. It is under construction by a consortium in which the Brazilian firm Odebrecht is the leading partner, with Tecnimont of Italy and Ingeniería Estrella for the Dominican Republic. Defending the legality of the tender, Jiménez said that reputable foreign and Dominican consulting firms had taken part in the process, including Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP, Pereyra & Pereyra, Russin Vecchi & Heredia Bonetti, Stanley Consultants, Proyersa, BNP Paribas Securities Corp, Deloitte RD, and Fundación Economía y Desarrollo.
Jiménez expressed his satisfaction at President Danilo Medina’s appointment of a commission to review the tender process with eminent personalities as members. The commission was created at the same time that the Attorney General began its investigations into the New York court ruling that states that Odebrecht had paid US$92 million in bribes in the Dominican Republic to secure US$163 million worth of work contracts. At present, the Punta Catalina plant is Odebrecht’s largest contract in the Dominican Republic.
The Odebrecht consortium was awarded the project with a winning bid of US$2.04 billion. He said the government has invested US$1.46 billion so far in the project that has completed 70% of the installation.
Jiménez said that the consortium is planting around 1.5 million mahogany trees to mitigate the environmental effects of the power plant. So far more than 555,000 trees have been planted in a number of locations.
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Listin Diario
13 January 2017
