The president of the Asociación de Empresas Industriales de Herrera, Ignacio Méndez called abusive and not understandable the increases in the electricity bill being levied by the Corporación Dominicana de Electricidad (CDE), the state electricity utility, on industrial consumers. He said they are hard to understand in these times when the cost of petroleum is dropping. He said that explanations for the increase of the kilowatt/hour given by the CDE are "infantile". He complained that the present administration of the CDE has sought the easy way out to their financial difficulties: increasing the bill of those that pay for electricity. The other alternative would have been to expand the base of those that pay for electricity, including collecting from government institutions, primarily decentralized government departments. It is estimated that 50% of Dominicans do not pay for their electricity consumption. Méndez says that the businessmen are tired of bringing their plight to the CDE and have only the hope that the capitalization process, expected to be in place by the end of this summer, will bring relief from the high rates. Some industrialists say the has been talk of rate increases of up to 40% in order for the CDE to achieve the income levels that it needs to pay for the new turbo gas power plants that are being installed around the country as an emergency measure to reduce blackouts to a minimum.
