President Leonel Fernandez feels that the capitalization of the public companies is the greatest contribution the present government will leave the country. He warned opposition leaders that their questioning of the privatization process and threats to reverse the later is damaging to the investment climate in the DR. He stressed that the companies were privatized as per the law Congress passed, and that these relations are now set in contracts. He says any revision of these needs to be carried out in court. He said that capitalization of the electric companies received a bad name when a coincidence of negative factors happened at the same time. He mentioned that several plants went off line, there were problems with the billing system of the private distributors, and the price of fuel abroad increased. In a televised press conference, he urged Dominicans to give time to the companies to make the necessary adjustments and investments. He said that the blackouts are not due to the privatization, but to deficiencies that were inherited. The President said that despite the "momentary black clouds over privatization", the process will guarantee efficient and trustworthy service in years to come. Fernández said that they went ahead with privatization because studies showed that the electricity system required an investment of RD$40,000 million, including RD$25,000 million in investments to ensure improvements and RD$15,000 million to pay old debts. The President said, "The problem of the bad image of privatization has come about because of the way they (the private companies) have been billing, without any justification, absolutely no justification." He reiterated the role of the Superintendence of Electricity to assist consumers with their billing problems. The private companies have not been available for comment to the press on the irregularity in their billing. In January, the problem climaxed when consumers received bills with around 100% increases, at a time when blackouts were 10-14 hours a day.
