The National Committee to Combat Climate Change (CNLCC) denounced that the recent issuing of US$500 million in sovereign bonds to finance the Punta Catalina thermoelectric power central violates the tender conditions of the project that explicitly said this type of financing would not be valid for the construction of the project. CNLCC says despite the clause in the tender, the government would later send the power central’s contract for approval to Congress establishing the possibility of using sovereign bond financing.
The committee says the tender established that Punta Catalina was envisioned as a “turnkey” project meaning the contractor was in charge of securing the financing even when the government guaranteed the payment of the loan.
Odebrecht had presented BNDES, the Brazilian export agency, as the financier of 80% of the project, but with the Lava Jato corruption scandal in Brazil the funding dried up.
The CNLCC said that the government has used the savings from the nation’s petroleum bills, with the drop in the price of fuel, to advance the construction and in a late development borrowed US$500 million.
The CNLCC points to the violation of the tender, Environmental Law 64-00, National Development Strategy Law 1-12, the Constitution in the construction of the project by the Medina administration.
CNLCC says that the registration as a supplier to the government was suspended in February 2017, but the government has paid RD$9 billion from January to May 2017 to Odebrecht, and will now advance the US$500 million from the June sale of sovereign bonds.
Read more in Spanish:
El Dia
19 June 2017
