On Tuesday, 14 July 2020, President-elect Luis Abinader tweeted two more would-be appointments in his government set to start on 16 August. They are:
Legal Advisor to the President: Antoliano Peralta Romero
A long-standing professional lawyer with extensive practice, Peralta Romero is an expert on electoral law. He has a masters in government law and municipal management from the Castilla – La Mancha University in Spain. He is a graduate of law from the state UASD university. A university law professor, he is a former vice president of the Dominican Bar and secretary-general of the Dominican Republic Association of Lawyers (Adoma). He is a native of Miches, El Seibo.
He was active as legal matters coordinator for the campaign of Luis Abinader.
Energy & Mines Minister: Antonio Almonte
The named Energy & Mines Minister for the Abinader administration is a nuclear engineer with a masters in nuclear physics from the Surrey University in the United Kingdom and in nuclear engineering from the Instituto de Estudios Nucleares/CIEMAT in Madrid, Spain.
He took courses in infrastructure economics at Harvard University in 2004 and worked on the design of electricity markets under Professor Frank Felder in Miami, Florida.
He was the director of the Dominican Institute of Industrial Technology (Indotec) from 2000 to 2003 and the director of the National Energy Commission (CNE) until August 2004 during the former President Hipólito Mejía government. When at Indotec, he directed the process of separating that entity from under the Central Bank into the present Institute of Research and Industrial Biotechnology (IIBI).
At the National Commission of Energy (CNE) he lead the drafting of the National Energy Plan 2004-2015 and Proposal for the Reform of the Dominican Electricity Sector (Decree 1036-03).
He was the director of the Physics Institute at the state UASD university where he was a professor for years.
He has been the executive director of the Energy Commission of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM). For years, he has been very critical of the Punta Catalina thermoelectric power central, especially of the non-disclosed contingency costs that have been responsibility of the Dominican government, adding to the already reportedly high contracted cost.
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N Digital
Teleradioamerica
15 July 2020